Consumer electronics giant High Tech Computer (HTC) announced the Exodus 1S smartphone with bitcoin (BTC) full node capability in a press release shared with Cointelegraph on May 11.

In the press release, the company claims that the value-oriented version of the smartphone will be released at the end of the third quarter of 2019. Building on the first generation of the company’s blockchain smartphone, Exodus 1, HTC claims that it will be the first smartphone to provide full node capability.

The release states that the phone will contain the full Bitcoin blockchain and allow for a trustless user experience since “a full node is the only way to use Bitcoin in a fully private way and full nodes are critical to securing the future of Bitcoin.” Phil Chen, decentralized chief officer at HTC, commented on the development:

“Full nodes are the most important ingredient in the resilience of the Bitcoin network and we have lowered the barrier to entry for any person to run a node, [...] participating in a global bitcoin network that propagates transactions and blocks everywhere.”

The company also released a Software Development Kit of its Zion Vault hardware wallet to all developers on GitHub. Lastly, the smartphone will feature widgets of the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain explorer Etherscan, European search engine Qwant and support non-fungible Ethereum-based ERC-721 tokens.

As Cointelegraph reported at the end of February, the new Galaxy S10 series smartphones by South Korean tech giant Samsung will apparently have wallet functions for ether, bitcoin and two other tokens.

In April, blockchain smartphone startup Sirin Labs reportedly laid off a quarter of its workforce.