HTC – an electronics company based in Taiwan – has released a new smartphone capable of running an entire bitcoin node. In other words, it can hold the entire bitcoin ledger with an SD card that’s purchased separately.
HTC – Paving the Way to Greatness
Known as the Exodus 1s, the phone clearly has a lot of storage space and memory. With the entire bitcoin network being held on a person’s phone, that’s roughly 260 gigabytes of memory right there – and the network is estimated to grow by approximately 60 gigabytes each year. One’s phone holding the entire network also leads to greater security and privacy by shielding it from third party middlemen, which opens the door to cyberattacks.
HTC chief officer Phil Chen says that running a full bitcoin node is the thing to do, even though it requires so much memory, as it makes the phone and the wallets it houses more self-sufficient. He comments:
It plays a really important role in the whole bitcoin ecosystem. It allows you to relay transactions, confirm transactions, validate transactions, and it’s basically one of the best ways for anybody to contribute to the whole security of the network.
Adding to this is Jimmy Song, developer and author working in the crypto industry. He says there are plenty of benefits to running an entire bitcoin node on one’s phone:
You are sovereign over which software you run and don’t have to trust a third party, which would be a security hole. You also get privacy since you can query the entire blockchain without revealing what you’re searching to anyone.
The phone is presently set at about $250 USD. Chen says that the reception towards the phone has been largely positive:
It’s been encouraging, which is why we’re launching a second version. It was targeted toward developers in the beginning. I think now people are beginning to understand what this thing is.
At press time, the phone can hold several cryptocurrency wallets, including those designed for bitcoin (BTC), Litecoin (LTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Binance Coin (BNB). As it stands, each one of these cryptocurrencies has its own full node, though the phone is only capable of holding BTC’s for the time being.
What Could Happen Later?
However, Chen did mention that these nodes could potentially be added in the future given that computing power and storage capabilities become more advanced and less expensive. He says:
We’re going to learn a lot; how people will be running this on mobile. This is the first time that people will be able to run a full bitcoin node on mobile. It would run daily. We’ll certainly learn a lot of how people will interact with bitcoin, what they do with a full node, and we want to apply those learnings to other future public blockchains.
