Swiss-Israeli tech firm Sirin Labs reported to have teamed up with FIH Mobile, a subsidiary of world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer Foxconn. The two companies will cooperate on producing Finney – a blockchain smartphone, which will have features such as app store for distributed apps, secure storage for crypto wallet keys and simple conversion between tokens. Finney will be able to work without using exchanges to convert digital currencies.

It will also allow owners to purchase good on crypto-friendly sites such as Expedia or Overstock, converting cash into tokens if needed. Sirin has said that currently the use of cryptocurrencies is difficult and unintuitive but with Finney users will finally be able to do without complex private keys and instead use fingerprint recognition or iris scan for verification in crypto-related services.

In terms of hardware, Finney will sport a 5.5-inch display, and come with 64GB of storage, 6GB RAM, a 12-megapixel rear camera and a 13-megapixel selfie camera. However, all these specs will be rendered useless if Sirin Labs won‘t be able to ensure digital currency management and top-notch security for its users. Interestingly, Finney will handle all coin-related services with hardware that is activated by a physical switch.

Foxconn is an electronics giant, supplying some of the biggest companies worldwide including Apple, Google, Huawei, Amazon and PlayStation among others. Moshe Hogeg, CEO of Sirin Labs told the partnership was intuitive, claiming that, “Bringing the first blockchain-based smartphone to market obligates us to partner with the very best in the market. FIH Mobile – the gold-standard in smartphone manufacturing – was ultimately the clear and natural partner for us.”

The agreement between two companies will have Foxconn creating original design and manufacturing the hardware, while Sirin Labs is in charge of developing Android-based Sirin OS and the cold storage wallet hardware. In December of last year, Sirin Labs successfully carried out the 4th largest ICO in history, raising $157m in addition to $70m raised previously. At the time, company stated the funds will be used to support the development of an open source blockchain smartphone as well as a blockchain personal computer.

Finney is set to start shipping in October for around $1,000 and in addition will also be available at physical stores in eight cities where cryptocurrencies are booming, in countries like Vietnam and Turkey. Sirin Labs claims to have already received more than 25,000 pre-orders and hopes to sell between 100,000 and a few million units during 2018.

A little bit further into the future, the company plans to license its technology to major phone manufacturers as meetings with Huawei have already taken place. This could push down the price of Finney to as little as $200 for a unit. Sirin is hopeful of reaching the mass market sooner rather than later, especially having in mind that competitors such as Zippie or BitVault are keeping a close eye on the situation.

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