Crypto-centric smartphones, or we may call blockchain phones, are real. HTC and Sirin Labs have already launched their blockchain smartphones Exodus 1 and Finney respectively. And it looks like Samsung also has something in the territory. The company has filed three trademark applications revealing its crypto-plans.
Samsung working on cryptocurrency software for its phones
Samsung has recently filed trademark applications for the terms Blockchain KeyStore, Blockchain key box and Blockchain Core with the EUIPO. The category in which the filing goes is “Smartphones; Software applications for use with mobile devices; Computer software platforms; Application software”.
These trademarks do not reveal any details except that it’s a crypto software that Samsung is planning for its phones. And the company is reportedly developing the software with the Galaxy S10 in mind. Samsung’s crypto software will have two parts — a cold wallet for storing cryptocurrency securely and a crypto wallet for making transactions.
Samsung’s cold wallet app will also allow users to import their existing third-party wallets. They can, however, create a new one in the app as well. Initially, the wallet may support Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ethereum-derived token ERC20 and Bitcoin Cash tokens.
Since crypto wallets are stored on the blockchain network with complete anonymity, users get only one way to recover it — through a unique recovery phrase. Therefore, the user needs to keep the 12-24 word phrase safely. And just as any other crypto wallet, Samsung’s app will also offer additional layers of security. This may be in the form of PIN and fingerprint.
Samsung is working on as many as four variants of the Galaxy S10 — an entry-level Galaxy S10 Lite, a regular S10, S10 plus and a top of the table Galaxy S10 with six cameras and 5G support. It now remains to be seen if all the four get this cryptocurrency cold wallet or it will be exclusive to a particular variant.
Nevertheless, Samsung’s going about its next flagship pretty aggressively and would certainly turn many heads when it announces the device at MWC 2019 in February.
