May 15, 2019 Article

The Future of Mobile Telephony is in Blockchain and Cryptos, Here's Why

The mobile telephony sector has, in the past few years, experienced tremendous developments that have changed how users interact and do business around the world. These developments range from flexible designs and use of artificial intelligence, to wireless connections and most recently, integration of blockchain in mobile phones.

Henceforth, mobile phone companies are gearing towards integrating blockchain technology in smartphones to improve their security. This will ease user-interaction without the need for a centralized system by having decentralized applications and crypto wallets.

Growing Interest
Previously, Sirin Labs and HTC were the only two companies that had embraced blockchain, by introducing the Finney phone that has a crypto wallet and stores digital currencies. The HTC Exodus also comes with great security features, storage and can only be purchased with cryptocurrencies. These two developments marked huge steps for crypto the industry and most recently, Samsung revealed its crypto wallet for Galaxy S10 phone. This new entreant only supports ether and ERC20 tokens as well as four Decentralized applications at onset.

Largely, the noteworthy features in all these companies are digital wallets, applications and storage in blockchain-based smartphones. This can be used to store digital tokens to make payments and for gaming purposes. All these aspects are significant to the mobile industry in moving towards mass adoption.

With the rising number of companies that integrate blockchain for reasons such as differentiation of mobile phones, the number of smartphone users and benefits accruing from the use of blockchain-based applications are likely to contribute to this trend.

Long-term Impact
To begin with, blockchain is likely to become a feature in mobile phone application development in the long run. Already, processes such as making payments, security verification and quality management have the potential to benefit from blockchain technology. This will propel development of these applications and consequently spark an interest in blockchain phones.

As mobile tech companies work towards diversifying smartphones in a competitive market, we are likely to see blockchain-based smartphones with more salient features emerge. Inspired by active governance, companies will try to outdo each other with the best blockchain features and this will most likely propagate the growth of the industry via mass adoption.

Jess Davis, CEO of Uberstate agrees that introduction of digital wallets in Samsung’s S10 smartphone is a step towards mass adoption and, soon, companies will be in competition to produce the best wallets.

He says, “In my professional opinion this is an example of a technology provider moving towards mass adoption of Blockchain. As the infrastructure grows and it becomes more common more companies will follow suit. I predict others will join in the race to have the best wallets embedded on their phones and find partners in the space.”

Furthermore, the number of smartphone users globally has already hit billions. This means that companies that develop blockchain applications that can be used by a large number of users and that allow users to transact using digital tokens will boost extensive integration of of blockchain in mobile phones. This will mean many people will have virtual currencies within their reach.

 
 Disclaimer: David Drake is on the advisory board for most of the firms mentioned or quoted in this article.