HTC Corporation has announced that Litecoin co-founder, Charlie Lee, will serve as an advisor to HTC Exodus, the native blockchain smartphone developed by the Taiwanese consumer electronics firm.
The HTC Exodus, which the Asian tech giant has described as the
world’s first native blockchain phone, is slated for release in this
year’s third quarter. HTC has indicated that every Exodus device will be
a node and this will allow users to own their identity and their data
by having both on their devices as opposed to being on a centralized
cloud. Additionally, every device will come with a cold storage wallet
for cryptocurrencies.
However, specifications of the device as well as the markets it will initially be available in have so far not been made public.
LTC Joins the Bandwagon
Originally, according to the Chief Crypto Officer of HTC, Phil Chen, it was revealed that HTC Exodus would support Bitcoin and Ethereum as CCN had reported.
“Through the Exodus, we are also excited to be supporting underlying
protocols such as Bitcoin, Lightning Networks, Ethereum, Dfinity, and
more,” Chen was quoted as saying. “We would like to support the entire
blockchain ecosystem, and in the next few months we’ll be announcing
many more exciting partnerships together. Together, we want to craft the
best blockchain & decentralized application experiences to end
consumers.”
Now the co-founder of Litecoin has confirmed that support has been expanded and will include the 7th-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.
With the stated goals of the HTC Exodus being to bring decentralized applications (dApp) to mobile devices, the Taiwanese tech giant earlier this month
announced that it had formed a partnership with CryptoKittes, a dApp on
the Ethereum network, allowing the game to be released on future devices
from HTC.
User Empowerment via Decentralization
Initially, the HTC U12+ was selected as the first HTC device through
which CryptoKitties would be distributed. At the time, HTC also invited
developers to distribute their blockchain games via its crypto
collectible marketplace as well as its crypto gaming app store to
‘combat the commoditization of humanity’ by empowering users through
dApps.
Besides HTC Corporation, another Taiwan-based tech firm, Foxconn was selected in April this year by Israeli tech firm, Sirin Labs, to build a blockchain-powered phone known as Finney. The blockchain-powered phone from Sirin Labs will allow users to store and make purchases using cryptocurrencies.
Expected to be shipped this October the operating system of the phone
will be Android-based.
