In order to expand the use of virtual money, Swiss startup, Sirin Labs introduced the world's first blockchain phone, in September 2017 ...
Now, FIH Mobile, a Chinese manufacturing subsidiary, Foxconn, has signed an agreement to produce a blockchain smartphone called Finney's ...
Besides being a smartphone, Finney also functions as a digital wallet to store virtual currency alias cryptocurrency ...
It is equipped with cold-storage (digital wallets not connected to the internet for safe) and integrated encrypted communications.
The creator designs Finney as a compatible device with a variety of blockchain-based virtual currencies, including bitcoin ...
Users can shop on sites that receive payments with cryptocurrency, such as Overstock and Expedia ...
All virtual money based services in Finney are activated via a physical button ...
Later, users will be able to authenticate transactions using biometric mechanisms such as fingerprint scanners and scanner iris, following passwords, instead of having to remember long digital wallet keys ...
In terms of specifications, Finney phone equipped with 5.5-inch screen, 6 GB RAM, and 64 GB storage ...
There's also a 12 megapixel rear camera and a 13 megapixel front camera ...
Its operating system is Sirin OS based on Android ...
Technology license
As summarized Vote-PSC from Bloomberg, Saturday (7/4/2018), the per unit price of Finney is set at 1,000 US dollars or almost Rp.14 million ...
However, by licensing its technology to other smarpthone manufacturers, Sirin hopes to push the price tag into a range of 200 US dollars ...
One party interested in licensing sirin technology reportedly is the Chinese giant (Huawei), Huawei is also allegedly developing mobile phone blockchain own ...
In December 2017, Sirin held an initial coin offering (ICO) to support the development of Finney phones ...
Funds raised as much as 157.8 million US dollars are also used to make PC tech blockchain ...
Finney's phone is set to be ready in October 2018, for online sales, along with retail marketing through eight stores in a number of countries experiencing cryptocurrency booms, such as Turkey and Vietnam ...
Sirin claims so far has received reservations for 25,000 units of Finney phones, and hopes to sell as many as 100,000 to several million units throughout 2018 ...