Last year, the DePIN narrative made Helium (Mobile) popular. Although DePIN seemed inconspicuous in the "Bitcoin bull market", it is still bringing surprises to the encryption industry. At the recent ETHDenver 2024 conference, DePIN was listed as a hot track, and now the success of io.net has once again stirred up the DePIN narrative.

There are many projects in the DePIN field. The previous huge airdrop of 30 million BONK allowed Saga to successfully break out of the circle. The value of airdrops exceeds the selling price of the phone itself, making previously unattended encrypted phones “hard to find” and even raising the already expensive retail price.

However, the purpose and functions of encrypted mobile phones have not yet been fully explored, and a new concept has emerged - cloud mobile phones.

New concept in DePin field: cloud phone

APhone claims to be the first decentralized Cloud-based smartphone, released on Solana. According to the official website, APhone can achieve seamless integration with its own processing power, storage capacity and GPU, and provide continuous, high-performance access.

Furthermore, powered by Aethir’s cutting-edge decentralized cloud technology, APhone ensures greater security, privacy and user protection. At the same time, it offers countless smartphone features in a single device, providing a comprehensive and advanced mobile experience.

APhone ecosystem applications The total supply of token PHONE is 210 billion, 85% of which is owned by community treasury. Currently, APhone has launched a points program, and points will be converted into PHONE tokens.

PHONE tokens will give holders voting rights in the APhone DAO that governs the platform. In addition to governance, APhone must be pre-installed by paying through PHONE, and holding a certain amount of PHONE tokens unlocks special access and customization.

APhone aims to be the ultimate gateway for approved web3 applications, such as the App Store on iPhone. APhone's documentation provides a detailed introduction to the specific operating mechanism principles. But for now, its usage experience is similar to using a computer to simulate the mobile phone operating interface, and it is still an "abstract" concept.

Cryptophones are making a comeback

In the field of DePIN, compared to "cloud phones", cryptophones are ) is more familiar. Especially the Saga mobile phone launched by Solana not long ago was sold out in anticipation of the airdrop, and even Solana co-founder Anatoly himself is using it.

Cryptophones are designed with a greater emphasis on blockchain, cryptocurrency, and decentralized applications than a regular iPhone or Android phone. The most common features are enhanced security to protect your passwords and private keys, while some can run full Bitcoin nodes and even be used for mining.

HTC opens the door to the field of encrypted mobile phones

In fact, the origin of encrypted mobile phones can be traced back to In 2019, that year HTC collaborated with Binance to release a limited edition Exodus 1 mobile phone. Subsequently, HTC launched its second blockchain phone, Exodus 1s.

Exodus 1S is a greatly streamlined version of Exodus 1, priced at $244. It has a built-in Zion hardware wallet that allows users to store and send Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Ethereum. Fang, as well as a number of other ERC-20 tokens based on the Ethereum blockchain. Best of all, Exodus 1s are capable of functioning as full Bitcoin nodes on their own, meaning they can verify and execute transactions on the device itself without relying on other services.

The problem is that in order to run a node, you have to keep the Exodus 1 plugged in and connected to a Wi-Fi network for this to work, which essentially makes it Useless as a smartphone. Furthermore, the dapps provided by Exodus 1s are of almost no use.

Not only as an encrypted mobile phone The advantages cannot be reflected, according to an article by decrypt Introduced in the article, the advantage of Exodus 1s as an ordinary smartphone is only its long battery life, but its disadvantages are more obvious. The lightweight plastic structure feels very cheap, and the bottom layer Specs feature a low-end Snapdragon 435 processor and only a 13MP rear camera.

But the emergence of Exodus 1s has undoubtedly opened the door to the field of encrypted mobile phones.

In the same year, Samsung launched the encrypted phone Galaxy S10, priced at $899. Not only has the performance and appearance of the smartphone been improved, as a crypto phone, the Galaxy S10 can support dozens of currencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, LEO tokens, Chainlink, and more. Meanwhile, the dapp lineup includes gaming, social media, and financial applications, among others. The Galaxy S10 also has its own trusted execution environment thanks to its Snapdragon 855 processor. Subsequently, Samsung collaborated with Kakao to release a blockchain version of KlaytnPhone, named Galaxy Note 10.

In addition to Samsung, there are also Sirin Labs’ encrypted phone Finney (priced at $999) that activates the wallet by sliding, the modular phone Pundi XPhone, and the latest Cheap encrypted mobile phones such as the Electroneum M1 (priced at US$80) were born one after another.

Saga’s huge airdrop leads a new way to play crypto phones

Expensive prices and semi-finished products Early attempts at encrypted phones failed to gain any meaningful traction, but Solana's Sage phone did.

In July 2022, Solana released the web3 flagship Android phone Saga. At that time, the market was in a bear market, and there were no positive factors in the field of encrypted mobile phones. Most users were not willing to spend $1,000 to buy Saga. As a result, Saga sales were slow in the early days, with around 20-30 units sold per day, still far from the 20,000-unit target. Even after a hefty 40% price cut from $1,000 to $599 in August 2023, the phone has struggled to attract buyers.

The most important thing, however, is that Saga airdropped 30 million BONK tokens to every mobile phone owner. In November 2023, Saga's fortunes changed when BONK broke through the resistance level and continued to surge, causing the value of the airdrop to exceed the cost of the phone itself.

Demand for Saga phones surged significantly until, on December 15, 2023, all 15,000 Solana Saga phones were sold out in one day. The craze surrounding mobile phones was at its peak. The encrypted phone, which initially went unnoticed when it dropped to $599, is reselling for up to $5,000 on secondary markets like eBay.

After the phone sold out, the hype surrounding the Solana Saga phone further amplified, with various projects announcing a series of additional rewards for Saga phone users, such as Access Protocol distributing 100,000 ACS tokens , Saga Monkes airdropped 8,505 NFTs, Solana meme project Samoyedcoin also airdropped 1,250 SAMO tokens, and many projects such as Solend are dedicated to airdropping tokens to Saga owners, while others such as Helium are offering things like a one-month Benefits like Helium Mobile Free Trial.

It is reported that Solana will launch a second-generation encrypted phone in the first half of 2025, with a tentative price of $450. Currently, many projects include Solend, Helius, Chads and Solcial, have announced airdrops, perks and giveaways for Saga 2 owners.

The success of the first generation allowed Saga 2 to achieve 100,000 pre-sales in just 30 days after its release, and other crypto projects have also begun to launch their own crypto phones. . Among them, Aptos announced a partnership with Jambo Technology to launch the JamboPhone, designed for Gen Z users in emerging markets in Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America.

What are the opportunities for encrypted phones?

The success of Saga can be said to be the economic stimulus that the airdrop is expected to bring. After all, from the perspective of encrypted mobile phone development itself, even by 20244, the blockchain infrastructure will still be At this early stage of development, the building blocks for developing a high-performance encrypted phone don't appear to exist.

To this day, there is still a lack of interesting applications in the DeFi user experience and ecosystem, let alone the app stores on encrypted phones 6 or 7 years ago. ? In addition to offering a limited selection of apps, crypto phones are quite expensive compared to other regular smartphones on the market, and lack practical tools for daily use of cryptocurrencies. Consumers are finding a lot of demand in the crypto phone market.

However, as internet access expands around the world, people are increasingly conducting cryptocurrency and traditional financial transactions on their smartphones. Access to the DeFi ecosystem through affordable mobile phones will provide the opportunity to attract billions of dollars into the cryptocurrency space. Additionally, crypto-native mobile and app stores will give developers access to thousands of DeFi power users and enable them to innovate freely without facing the opaque guidelines and fees associated with marketplaces like the Google Play Store or Apple App Store. challenge.

In the long term, one can view cryptophones as tools that prioritize crypto values such as freedom, self-custody, and privacy, ensuring users have control over their assets and digital right. In this case, an encrypted phone comes with a built-in secure enclave, similar to a vault inside the phone, that stores private keys securely and isolated from other activity on the phone.

Someday in the future we may look back at the BONK airdrop and how this event triggered a shift in power dynamics in the tech industry. Perhaps, cryptophones can actually bring cryptocurrencies into the mainstream, but only time will tell.

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