Bitcoin.com and HTC are teaming up on HTC’s flagship Exodus 1 smartphone in a big push to grow mobile usage of cryptocurrencies. Exodus 1 is the first phone that offers support for Bitcoin Cash (BCH) without the need to download a BCH wallet from an app store.
Existing Exodus 1 users will now be able to update the software on their devices to gain access to a Bitcoin.com wallet app pre-loaded on their devices.
The arrangement could help add more users to Bitcoin.com’s current base of over four million wallet holders worldwide, while establishing HTC as a leading manufacturer of blockchain-based smartphones, a growing sector for competitor Samsung which recently launched Bitcoin support for its Galaxy line.
Smartphones are critical pipelines for maximizing the global reach of cryptocurrencies. According to Pew Research Center, 81% of Americans currently own smartphones, up from 35% in 2011. That number rises to 96% among users who are 18-29 years old and 92% for users who are 30-49, or roughly a total of 226 million Americans.
Worldwide, the number of smartphone users is on the rise.
According to Statista,
“The number of smartphone users worldwide today surpasses three billion and is forecast to further grow by several hundred million in the next few years. China, India, and the United States are the countries with the highest number of smartphone users, with each country easily surpassing the 100 million user mark.”
Says Phil Chen, decentralized chief officer at HTC,
“The Exodus vision has always aligned itself towards public blockchains and its fundamental transformative nature of the future of money and the Internet.”
Zion Vault, which is the Taiwanese tech giant’s blockchain product, is billed as a “private vault on the blockchain” for users’ crypto assets, allowing crypto investors, traders and users to conduct transactions, and view and manage crypto collectibles while maintaining ownership of one’s private keys.
Zion Vault supports Bitcoin, Ether, Litecoin, Stellar, selected ERC-20 tokens and ERC-721 collectibles.
“The Zion Vault is happy to support BCH natively in hardware for security to go hand in hand with the BCH blockchain as an alternative to dominant payment rails and platforms.”
Bitcoin.com’s executive chairman Roger Ver notes,
“Bitcoin.com’s partnership with HTC will enable Bitcoin Cash to be used as peer- to- peer electronic cash for all the Exodus users around the world.”
Bitcoin Cash is the world’s fourth-largest cryptocurrency with a market cap of $5.4 billion, according to data compiled by CoinGecko.
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