Sirin Labs made the news last September when it unveiled a blockchain-powered phone and PC that would act as secure wallets for your cryptocurrency fortune. It’s now found a manufacturer in Foxconn, the Taiwanese firm that builds iPhones for Apple.
The $999 Finney phone will let you store and shop with virtual currencies like Bitcoin, and allow you to earn tokens by sharing your mobile data connection with people around you; it also promises enhanced security thanks to its open-source Android-based Sirin OS.
Bloomberg reports that a physical switch will activate coin-related services, and that users will eventually be able to secure the devices with an iris scan, fingerprint, and a simple password – negating the need to remember long keys for their wallets.
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The handset is slated to ship in October, and will be available at physical stores in eight cities where cryptocurrency is booming, in countries like Vietnam and Turkey. The Switzerland-based company says that it’s already received more than 25,000 pre-orders, and hopes to sell between 100,000 and a few million units in 2018. Further down the line, the plan is to license its tech to other hardware brands; Sirin is said to have been in talks with Huawei about that.
On the hardware front, the Finney will sport a 5.5-inch display, and come with 64GB of storage, 6GB RAM, a 12-megapixel camera on the rear, and a 13-megapixel selfie camera. Of course, none of this will matter if the company can’t actually deliver on its promises of enabling cryptocurrency management and Fort Knox-grade security for its users. It’ll be interesting to see if Sirin Labs can pull this off later in the year.
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