After a $158 million ICO last December, Sirin Labs has chosen FIH Ltd., a subsidiary of Foxconn, to build its so-called ‘Finney’ blockchain smartphone. The Finney, which is essentially a mobile phone and crypto hardware wallet in one, will be available in Turkey, Vietnam, and other select locations as early as October 2018. According to a Bloomberg report, 25,000 Finneys have been preordered.
Foxconn Technology Group is one of the largest contract electronics manufacturers internationally and is one of the most prolific employers in the world. Some of Foxconn’s other customers have included Apple, Google, Huawei, Cisco, and Amazon.
SIRIN LABS is incredibly excited to announce that it has chosen FIH Mobile (Foxconn International Holding) to Manufacture the FINNEY smartphone. With this development, we are taking a huge leap forward to bring the Go Crypto revolution to the mainstream. https://t.co/YvZ1oX4xD4
— SIRIN LABS (@SIRINLABS) April 4, 2018
Making Crypto More Accessible
The Finney was conceptualized with the goal of making crypto storage and transactions more accessible to the average user. There are some applications that allow users to either store their coins on their devices or to access their funds with their mobile devices, but there has never been a mobile device created for the specific purpose of crypto storage.
Most serious crypto users keep their funds offline in ‘paper wallets’ or more traditional hardware wallets, which involves protecting long, nonsensical strings of characters known as private keys.
Moshe Hogeg, CEO of Sirin, said that the esoteric nature of crypto has been a serious impediment to the growth of the industry: “…the mass market would never get [current methods of crypto storage]. There’s no chance my mom can figure out how to use Bitcoin, and my mom is smart.”
Users of the Finney won’t have to type in their private keys in order to access their funds. Instead, Sirin plans to make it possible for users to access their funds with iris scans, fingerprints, or even simple passwords.
In addition to its storage capabilities, the Finney will streamline the process of using crypto to pay for things at websites that accept crypto, and will even allow users to convert their fiat into specialized crypto tokens when necessary. The device reportedly seeks to integrate as many tokens as possible.
Bloomberg reported that the Finney will also enable users to monetize their data connection by getting paid in real time by other Finney users who connect to their mobile hotspot.
Sirin has its fingers crossed that its product will reach shelves before its competitors’ products. Zippie and BitVault have been developing blockchain smartphones of their own.
(Photo: Sirin Labs)
