What happened to the pioneers as Solana plans its own Blockchain phone?

Solana (SOL)’s new crypto-native phone that will be developed by the little-known smartphone manufacturer Osom is far from the first ‘blockchain phone’ that was announced since crypto and blockchain technology took a giant step into the mainstream around 2017. But what really happened to all the other phones, and did the manufacturers keep their promises?

To find out, we dug up reports on blockchain phones dating back to 2018 and looked at the status of these projects today.

Sirin Labs’s Finney phone

Among the first companies to announce a custom blockchain phone was Switzerland-based Sirin Labs with his Finney phone, named after the late cryptographer and Bitcoin (BTC) pioneer Hal Finney.

The company itself received its financing through the fourth largest initial coin offering (ICO) in 2017, after raising USD 157.8 million from the sale of the SRN token.

And although the price of the token has collapsed from a peak of USD 3.5 in 2018 to basically zero today, the Finney phone was made and is still for sale in Sirin Shop.

In addition, as recently as June 2021, Sirin Labs launched an updated version of its phone known as Sirin V3, pr. chirping from the company.

Pundi X without XPhone

XPhone was a smartphone designed by Pundi Xa cryptocurrency payment company based in Singapore.

Among the products that Pundi X has delivered is XPOS, a device the company says on its LinkedIn page is “the world’s first point of sale solution that enables sellers and consumers to execute store transactions immediately on the blockchain.”

However, the company’s smartphone appears to be a dead project, with little information to be found since the first announcement in 2018.

According to the announcement at the time, the xPhone would work without an operator by directing data through blockchain nodes. “Unlike traditional phones that require a centralized mobile operator, XPhone runs independently without the need for it,” the blog post states.

In a statement shared with Cryptonews.com, Pundi X referred to a blog post from 2020 and said that the production of the phone has been affected by Covid-19 and cost increases. As a result, the company said that they no longer accept orders for the phone, and that those who had pre-ordered have received a refund.

The company added that it now focused on the adoption and improvement of the point-of-sale solution XPOS.

HTC Exodus

In 2018, the smartphone maker HTC announced its commitment to crypto with the Exodus phone, which reportedly can act as a crypto hardware wallet. The phone was also reported to come with a separate microoperative system running in parallel with Android, made by SoftBank‘s Arm Holdingsto keep customers’ crypto safe.

In 2020, the company took the project one step further by enabling Monero (XMR) mining on the phone through a partnership with the ASIC chip design company Midas Labs.

The Exodus phone is among the ‘cryptocurrencies’ that have done so, and the phone is still for sale to this day via a dedicated website.

LG’s blockchain phone

The big electronics company LG was also among the companies that in the wake of the beef market in 2017 wanted to secure their share of the growing blockchain industry with a dedicated smartphone.

In 2019, the company previously confirmed rumors that it was working with a blockchain-powered phone, and said that such a phone was actually under consideration.

Fast forward to 2021, but the company, which had long struggled with smartphone sales, said it would leave the smartphone market entirely due to its declining market share and the loss of around $ 4.1 billion.

LG has not released any information about the fate of the planned blockchain phone, and the company did not respond to a request for comment from Cryptonews.com.

Nevertheless, the electronics giant has continued to show interest in crypto, saying in a statement in March this year that it has added “development and sales of blockchain-based software” as one of its business goals.

Furthermore, reports earlier this year even speculated that the company might be looking to start a crypto exchange.

Huobi-associated Acute Angle phone

Another company that announced a blockchain phone in 2019 was the crypto exchange Huobi in partnership with The whole network.

According to reports from 2019, the development of the phone, called Acute Angle, will be financed through the sale of Whole Network’s NODE tokens on Huobi. Furthermore, the exchange also promised that customers would be able to pay for the phone using the huobi token (HT).

However, no information has been published by Huobi or its partner Whole Network about the status of the phone since 2019. Today, Whole Network’s website is no longer available, the company’s Twitter accounting has not shared anything since 2019, while the last post on the Weibo account is from 2020.

Meanwhile, the price of the Whole Networks NODE token has dropped to initially 0, but the token remains negotiable on Huobi Global.

Cryptonews.com contacted Whole Network but have not heard back.

Samsung KlaytnPhone

Last on our list is a phone call from the South Korean electronics giant Samsungis said to be driven by Cocoa subsidiary Tray Xits Klaytn blockchain platform. The phone was actually a special limited edition of Samsung’s Galaxy Note 10 phone tablet (phablet).

According to initial reports on KlaytnPhone from 2019, the only real difference between KlaytnPhone and a regular Galaxy Note 10 is that the former comes with a crypto wallet and certain blockchain apps installed. In addition, 2000 KLAY tokens are given to all telephone customers.

According to the phone’s dedicated website, the KlaytnPhone is “the first and only smartphone that offers a simple and seamless experience for users who interact with iGaming platforms and blockchain-powered services.” The site added that the phone allows users to “experience an all-in-one blockchain ecosystem from token to wallet to blockchain application.”

According to the same website, KlaytnPhone is only available to customers in South Korea.

Cryptonews.com reached out to the makers of KlaytnPhone to learn about the status of the project, but has not yet heard back.

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Learn more:
– Solana Labs, Smartphone Maker Osom joins forces to unveil Web3-ready handsets
– Pundi X enters into an agreement in Venezuela, mobile operator embraces Crypto Pay

– Huawei’s latest smartphone comes with a CBDC wallet for Digital Yuan
– Mobile Carrier SK unveils Samsung-made 5G phone with Blockchain ID wallet

– Samsung launches new digital wallet with “Crypto” and digital documentation options
– Samsung adds third-party Crypto Wallet support

– LG ‘Probably’ follows Samsung into the Blockchain Phone Market
– Samsung and LG can follow SK in the issuance of a cryptoactive – Analysts

– Mining Monero on HTC Exodus 1s coming in 3 months
– How is HTC’s Exodus 1s cryptophone different from Exodus 1

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(Updated June 30 at 14:30 UTC with a statement from PundiX)