Initially announced in May, the Exodus 1 phone was unveiled in Berlin, Germany on Oct. 22. The handset will retail for 0.15 BTC or 4.78 ETH in early access deals, which is equivalent to $960. First shipments are expected in December, the company said.
“Exodus 1 is a foundational element of the crypto internet,” Phil Chen, HTC’s ‘decentralized chief officer’, said in a statement on the company’s website. “For digital assets and decentralized apps to reach their potential, we believe mobile will need to be the main point of distribution.”
Built into the Exodus 1 is a cryptocurrency wallet called Zion, which was developed by HTC to serve as a hardware virtual currency wallet. Chen said the wallet runs from a secure enclave on the phone’s chip, separate from the Android operating system, to safeguard digital coins. He underscored the importance of keeping this area of the phone separated from Android because Google’s operating system was “fundamentally insecure with a centralized system,” exposing users’ funds to theft by attackers.
“Think of [the enclave] as a micro OS that runs in parallel with Android,” CNBC quoted Chen as saying. “It basically is a wallet, but the wallet, what it does is hold your private keys.” Chen added: “The reason why you do a blockchain phone is … for everybody just to own their own keys. Everything starts there. When you start owning your own keys, then you can start owning your own digital identity, then you can start to own data.”