One of the newest trends in mobile is Bitcoin and the blockchain, although only a few companies are ready to offer phones featuring cold wallets for secure crypto storage, or support for decentralized apps. HTC and Sirin are two such companies, with each one having launched a blockchain phone in the past few months. That doesn’t seem enough to establish a real trend, but Samsung is about to join with Bitcoin-friendly features of its own.
In fact, these features might even debut with the Galaxy S10 early next year.
It’s one thing to buy a phone just for the sake of the blockchain technology, and quite a different thing to buy a Galaxy S10 that also supports the secure storage of digital assets. Earlier this week, Galaxy Club revealed that Samsung filed for several trademarks in the European Union that suggest the company is interested in the blockchain space. These are Blockchain KeyStore, Blockchain Key Box, and Blockchain Core.
Following up on the news, SamMobile discovered that the company is indeed working on its own cryptocurrency service, which might debut with the Galaxy S10 next year. Samsung’s crypto service will supposedly include a cold wallet for saving cryptocurrency, public and private keys, and signing private keys for crypto transactions. A secondary wallet would manage transfers, account information and transaction history. The names for these two products have not been finalized.
The cold wallet is of particular interest, as it’s the kind of wallet that’s more secure for storing Bitcoin and other altcoins. A cold wallet is typically kept offline most of the time, which is why it’s more secure than a hot wallet, one hosted on an exchange or different type of online software.
Users will be able to import wallets from other services into the cold wallet, including Metamask, TrustWallet, and others, and the wallet would support Bitcoin, Ethereum (and Ethereum-based tokens), and Bitcoin Cash. As with other types of cold storage for crypto, the device maker, Samsung in this case, won’t have access to the data stored in the cold wallet, and users will be able to recover the contents using a standard 12- to 24-word phrase. On top of that, Samsung’s Bitcoin app will require authentication, meaning that users will need to enter a PIN or scan a fingerprint to access the cold wallet.
Details about the second wallet, the one that would allow users to transfer crypto, aren’t available at this time. It’s likely the hot wallet would also have various security features in place. Samsung is expected to unveil the Galaxy S10 in February and launch it in several markets a few weeks after the Unpacked press event.
