Samsung, the South Korean electronics giant, has announced this morning its plans to launch a new line of smartphones that would be compatible with crypto and blockchain technology. This new variety of smartphone would be called “KlatynPhone” and would be a variant of the newly launched Samsung Galaxy S10. The Klatynphone is expected to be available for sale from the 5th of September, i.e. today, in South Korea.
In the last month, Samsung had already integrated Bitcoin (BTC) functionality on its blockchain-enabled smartphones, like in the Galaxy s10, which was launched in March this year. The Galaxy S10 has been loaded with a “Blockchain Keystore” which provides storage for cryptocurrency and transactions for Ethereum (ETH) and other related ERC-20 tokens. Later bitcoin features were also added to the developer kit (SDK) for other models too like S10e, S10+, and S10 5G, and also the Note10 and Note10+ devices.
The electronics manufacturer has therefore shown a keen interest in the growing arena of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. This has been testified time and again as the company has filed a patent for a “programmable blockchain solid-state drive (SSD)” very recently and has integrated Pundi X’s XWallet app into its blockchain wallet. “Klatyn” is the name of GroundX’s blockchain platform, and the former is an internet company in Korea and a blockchain subsidiary of Kakao. This is how the name KlatynPhone seems to have originated, according to a Wall Street Journal report. The phone will thus be launched with a pre-loaded cryptocurrency wallet along with other blockchain applications.
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A few months back in May, Chan Won-Cheol, the senior managing director of the products strategy team at Samsung Electronics Wireless Business Division had stated:
We will lower barriers to new experiences by gradually expanding the number of Galaxy models that support blockchain functions. We will also expand our service target countries after Korea, the United States, and Canada.
Thus this recent move can be seen in the context of the tech giant’s escalating interests in the field of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology as it plans to make its digital wallet app available even on the lower variants of the smartphone, thereby pushing the crypto features to newer limits or jurisdictions.
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The KlatynPhone is expected to be priced at 1000 USD and buyers of the phone would be additionally given Klatyn’s Klay token of an equivalent amount. Reportedly Kakao is also planning to introduce the Klay token on some cryptocurrency exchanges in China, shortly. Besides Samsung is also developing its blockchain network based on ethereum and has recently added the “Samsung Coin” token. Additionally, with plans to add blockchain technology to its enterprise IT solution packages, the company has also invested approximately 3 million USD in Ledger, a cryptocurrency wallet startup. Thus Samsung wishes to emerge as one of the leading companies in the cryptocurrency and blockchain technology sector.
