Samsung has announced that its new Galaxy S10 smartphone will include a feature for securely storing cryptocurrency private keys through its “blockchain-enabled” mobile services.
The largest smartphone manufacturer in the world by market share, Samsung has ignited significant interest among the crypto community on its announcement that their flagship smartphone would come with dedicated “secure storage” designed for cryptocurrency private keys. The company’s press release of 21st February gave details of the phone’s new and upgraded features such as an “advanced intelligence” camera system, 256 GB of storage and the ability to wirelessly charge other phones.
Of particular interest was Samsung’s highly anticipated proprietary defence platform, Samsung Knox. This, according to the press release, will enable the S10 to have secure private key storage for blockchain-enabled services. However, no further details on Knox platform have been made available.
The announcement has added fuel to the flames of rumours that have been circling the tech world for some time that the S10 smartphone would come with crypto-friendly features with much speculation arising from Samsung’s filing of numerous patents around blockchain.
Samsung may not be the first company to add support for cryptocurrencies in smartphone, but their competition appears to be limited with the Exodus 1 from HTC, which can only be purchased with cryptocurrencies, and the Finney from Sirin Labs, which is reputed to have “low quality hardware” are already on the market, but both have experienced limited sales this far. However, a product by Samsung, the largest corporation in South Korea ranked 12thon the Fortune 500, is bound to make entry to crypto for the average consumer significantly easier.
Samsung’s move in integrating crypto-friendly features into the S10 sends a clear signal to the cryptocurrency community that the smartphone giant recognises the growth and potential impact of the technology. Adding the feature to one of the most eagerly anticipated smartphones in the world is also likely to further spur adoption of cryptocurrency world-wide, representing a major step for the technology’s integration into mainstream products.
