Are Blockchain-Powered Phones the Future?
Bitcoin emerged more than a decade ago now. Since then, significant strides have been made in distributed ledger technology every year. For those working in tech, the promise of cryptocurrencies and crypto-assets is nothing new — for some, it’s probably getting old.
Among the ordinary population, though, it is a different story. A survey conducted in late 2018 by the FCA and the Bank of England found that an overwhelming 73% of UK consumers don’t know what a cryptocurrency is or are unable to define it. Awareness has historically polled as higher in the US, but the takeaway is that most people are still in the dark when it comes to what a cryptocurrency (and, by extension, blockchain technology) actually is and how they work.
Putting Cryptocurrency In Our Pockets
Even among the enlightened, ask them how they actually access cryptocurrency themselves and they may not be able to tell you. Just as with the adoption of any new major technology, the barriers to entry are as much educational as they are financial or technical. It will be when the influence of cryptocurrencies on otherwise familiar devices is felt that people will truly take note and consider how they could influence their own lives.
This is where smartphone manufacturers potentially have a large role to play. Samsung, for example, is one big name that is seemingly committed to making blockchain technology more accessible. Currently, the South Korean giant’s Blockchain Wallet is available on the new Galaxy S10, which comes with features like digital signing and support for decentralised apps.
In a press release from last month, Samsung outlined its plans to roll out these features across the Galaxy range. “We will lower barriers to new experiences by gradually expanding the number of Galaxy models that support blockchain functions,” the release says. “We will also expand our service target countries after Korea, the United States and Canada.” This does not necessarily mean that users will be adopting cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology in their droves, but having the technology available on such a mainstream device is a huge step forward.
Building for Blockchain
Taiwanese manufacturer HTC is taking a slightly different approach, creating a smartphone with both blockchain capabilities and an affordable price tag but doing so with blockchain as the selling point rather than an addition. Though no specific launch date has been announced, HTC says that the Exodus 1S — the latest in the Exodus series — will cost somewhere between $250 and $300. Notably, the relatively light price-tag of the phone was chosen in a bid to make blockchain technology (and indeed the phone itself) more accessible.
HTC also announced that the original in the series, the Exodus 1, would now support a native blockchain wallet, allowing users to directly swap some cryptocurrencies. The swaps are performed entirely on-chain, meaning users no longer have to first move their crypto into a third-party exchange. HTC has recognised that blockchain can flourish if trading is made as seamless as it is when using fiat currency. Adding this capability seamlessly into smartphones could play a major role in that technological shift.
Consumers will use technologies if they are accessible to the point of being built into their next smartphone. The average buyer may not run to HTC or Samsung because of the functionality, but having such gargantuan companies embedding the technology reduces the barrier to entry greatly.
Are Pocket Exchanges Secure?
The introduction of blockchain-capable smartphones comes at a time when there is some debate around a smartphone’s ability to act as a crypto wallet. A reported $1.8 billion was stolen through cryptocurrency hacks and scams in 2018, so security has never been more of a key consideration.
In summer last year, Samsung released research claiming that smartphones were entirely appropriate vessels for blockchain technology thanks to their use of Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs). TEEs are areas that are completely isolated from the rest of the device, which could hold private keys that are then only accessible by what is called a ‘trustlet’. Essentially, this would mean that hackers would be unable to access the private keys directly.
This is all very well and TEEs have been shown to be effective for the most part — particularly in protecting private keys — but they don’t protect against all forms of attack vectors. Malware can still affect other critical areas of the software stack and at other stages in the process, which can lead to money being fraudulently transferred to the attacker’s address.
“There are some caveats [to using TEEs],” John Hopkins University’s cryptography professor Matthew Green told The Next Web. “In order to be useful, the apps on the phone have to be able to make requests to the TEE, requests along the line of ‘send Bitcoins to a specific person.’ So sophisticated malware might not be able to extract the keys from the TEE, but by compromising an app they might be able to cause the TEE to make a payment of your funds. This is nearly as bad.”
Whether they are currently secure enough looks like it will be irrelevant, phones with blockchain capabilities are coming. Samsung is already developing a relatively wide array of blockchain-based products, from its Blockchain Keystore to its Blockchain Wallet, which will reportedly all work together in order to simplify the usage of crypto-assets for their customers. Where exactly blockchain technology goes from here is open to speculation, but smartphone manufacturers want to be well equipped to cater for it wherever it ends up.
