A subsidiary of Taiwan-based electronics giant Foxconn is to help develop and build a blockchain phone from Sirin Labs, a news report indicates.
The Android-based smartphone – called the Finney – is being built from the ground up, with special features that should appeal to cryptocurrency enthusiasts, including an app store for distributed apps (dapps), secure storage for crypto wallet keys and simple conversion between tokens.
According to Bloomberg, the Finney is expected to start shipping in October for around $1,000, and will initially be sold at eight new stores, to be sited in crypto hotspots around the world. Sirin CEO Moshe Hogeg told the news source that the phone may eventually be sold via mobile carriers too.
Sirin said that over 25,000 Finneys have been preordered so far, and the company is eyeing a sales target for 2018 in the range of 100,000 to several million.
As reported by CoinDesk, Sirin Labs raised $157 million in December for the project in an initial coin offering, in addition to $70 million raised previously.
The Switzerland-based company said at the time that the product will fill a gap in the fast-growing cryptocurrency market for a secure device that can simplify the use of cryptocurrency across multiple applications.
Notably, the Bloomberg article suggests that the Finney will have a secure part of its hardware for cryptocurrency that is enabled via a physical switch.
By licensing the phone’s technical advances to other phone makers, Sirin hopes the price for a Finney could later fall possibly as low as $200.
Finney phone image via Sirin Labs