Samsung announced its latest generation of smartphones recently, showcasing its most advanced phones yet. The new Galaxy S20 series comes with one of the most advanced smartphone cameras, 8K video recording, 5G capabilities and much more. The smartphones also support cryptocurrencies, coming with the Blockchain Keystore that Samsung debuted with its Galaxy S10 model.
When it released its Galaxy S10 models in 2019, Samsung included crypto support for the first time through its Samsung Knox platform. The excitement in the crypto industry was palpable, and Samsung exploited this, making the crypto support one of S10’s standout features. With the S20, the crypto support features barely got a mention, with other capabilities such as the camera taking centerstage.
However, despite the lack of marketing, the S20 will support cryptos. On the Samsung website, the South Korean electronics giant states, “We created a secure processor dedicated to protecting your PIN, password, pattern and Blockchain Private Key. Combined with the Knox platform, security is infused into every part of your phone, from hardware to software. So private data stays private.”
Samsung hasn’t revealed whether it will carry on with the same functionalities that are in its S10 model or if it will improve on them. However, it’s most likely that the tech giant will continue supporting most of the features in its previous model.
Samsung, which has been the largest smartphone manufacturer in the past eight years, has been a proponent of crypto storage on phones. The company believes that smartphones are safer than desktops for storing cryptos. In a blog post in 2018, the company claimed that the Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) makes smartphones more equipped to protect cryptos from cybercriminals. The TEE acts as a separate execution environment, isolated from the rest of the device. Even if hackers compromise the Android OS, they can’t access the private keys stored on the TEE.
Samsung followed up its talk by launching the Blockchain Keystore last year. Initially, it offered just four decentralized applications, including a social media app and a password wallet. It added over a dozen more in August, cementing its position as the blockchain leader in the smartphone industry.
HTC has been one of the other major smartphone makers that have supported blockchain. The company launched its Exodus blockchain-powered smartphone in late 2018. The phone hasn’t been as successful as would have been anticipated.
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