Following the announcement made in May 2019, HTC unveiled the Exodus 1s at the Lightning Conference in Berlin (Germany) on October 19, and began offering the gadget by accepting payments via Lightning Network.
The latest Exodus 1s is a cheaper version of the popular blockchain supporting Exodus 1, which started supporting Bitcoin Cash (BCH) recently.
The new gadget, priced at €219 ($233), is available for purchase using Bitcoin, Ether (ETH), Binance Coin (BNB), Litecoin (LTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) as payment.
The smart phone features remit, receive, purchase, sell, trade, borrow and lend options, in addition to full Bitcoin node. To begin with, the product will be offered to users in Europe, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan and the UAE. This will followed by launches in Taiwan, Germany and Switzerland.
Phil Chen, Decentralized Chief Officer at HTC, opined that full nodes are the “most important ingredient in the resilience of the Bitcoin network,” citing that by introducing the Exodus 1s the company has brought down the entry barrier for individuals who wish to run a node and take part in the global network.
On October 23, 2018, HTC launched the “first native blockchain phone” Exodus 1 in 34 countries including Hong Kong, the US and UK. In mid-September, Pundi X, a decentralized offline crypto sales company, launched Blok, a blockchain smartphone at the IFA trade show in Berlin.
Earlier in October, media reported South Korean consumer electronics company LG to be developing a blockchain phone which is aimed to compete with Samsung’s blockchain phone Klaytn.