Crypto/Blockchain Phones, Genius, Or A Complete Waste Of Time?

Published 5 years ago on July 13, 2018

Crypto/Blockchain Phones, Genius, Or A Complete Waste Of Time?

The evolution of the mobile phone goes a little something like this…Cumbersome to portable, followed by the inclusion of a bigger screen, followed by a colour version of the screen. Next up, more buttons, games and interactivity. Phones could then communicate with infrared and soon after, bluetooth. Cue the sliders, the flip tops and even the landscape phones designed for gaming. Add a camera and we have a technological revolution.Next, we trashed the buttons, who needs them when you have a touch screen? WIFI, NFC, 3G, 4G the lot, now, even some of them are waterproof.All of these elements have however made themselves useful. Even cheap smartphones are capable of the above so it almost seems as if we have reached an optimal point for mobile phone technology. Now though, two major manufacturers, Sirin Labs and HTC are announced the production of two blockchain based smartphones, phones that exist on the blockchain and double up as a cryptocurrency wallet too. Is this a good idea, or is it a vein grab at a technology that really doesn’t need to meet mobile phone technology?Check out this article on Motherboard in which the author, Jordan Pearson discusses the problems of carrying your life savings around in a crypto wallet on your mobile phone- A Blockchain Phone Is an Interesting Idea Until You Lose ItEven more so, you can already access wallets on your phone so why are these products any different?The blockchain technology that could potentially work with these phones is quite interesting, but generally I believe that the technology is already available via the internet and thus, a phone designed for that purpose is a little redundant. Some will genuinely believe that these blockchain phones will start a revolution within mobile phone technology, I however disagree and believe that this is a bit of a fad and is a case of two companies wanting to latch on to something which is a little bit fashionable at the moment. Unlike the camera phone, the blockchain doesn’t offer any intrinsic advantages to a mobile phone that aren’t already indirectly available anyway. I may be wrong and these could very well be the next big thing, it seems pretty doubtful though doesn’t it. Investment Disclaimer

Robert Johnson

Robert first came across Bitcoin in 2016 during a meetup in Belgium, and has been hooked ever since. With a background in Economics, you can find Robert frequently looking at the Twitter feed of the SEC for any regulatory updates relating to Bitcoin and Crypto in general.