HTC is dead serious about its foray into crypto-phones. Just yesterday we mentioned that HTC would be releasing a new phone. Today, the Taiwanese company announced the Exodus 1s, a cheaper version of the Exodus flagship that was launched last year.
HTC has announced a new blockchain phone called the Exodus 1s. Compared to its predecessor, the $699 Exodus 1, the Exodus 1s is a cheaper phone, but it also brings an important feature that was promised from the get go: full Bitcoin node capability.
The HTC Exodus 1s will cost around $250 to $300 when it launches in the third quarter of 2019.
No specs were revealed, but the important news is that every Exodus 1s phone will have full Bitcoin node capabilities. This may sound somewhat arcane even for cryptocurrency users, the vast majority of whom don’t run a full node, but it has important implications for the Bitcoin ecosystem.
“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, which is simply a computer, mobile in our case, participating in a global bitcoin network that propagates transactions and blocks everywhere, which is the foundation and fundamental definition of a peer-to-peer cash system,” Chen said in a statement.
Most of the Exodus 1s’s features will arrive on the big Exodus via an update, too. While no one is suggesting that a lone phone maker falling out of the news and into the history book will be enough to properly integrate blockchain into the mobile world, the growth of the Exodus and the promises of the 1s are exciting and innovative. They’re certainly something to watch.
