Smartphone innovation has been at the very top of technological trends for over a decade now and just when we thought we had seen it all, we have once again come to see that there is still more to come. From the folding phones to the 5G phones that were showcased at the recent Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona Spain, tech enthusiasts were treated to bizarre and incredibly unique takes on the gadgets that have nowadays become a part of our day-to-day lives.
That said, one of the standout presentations at the MWC this year was the world’s first ever crypto mining smartphone. There have, of course, been other crypto-related smartphone innovations in the recent past but all of them mainly involved phones that could support blockchain technology. Great examples of these included the HTC Exodus 1 which was launched at a fairly reasonable starting price and could be purchased using either fiat currency or digital currency. The company hoped the new innovation would help them to steer the mobile and crypto industries to the new era of the next internet but it remains to be seen how this will all play out – the company’s mobile division has been on the rocks for quite some time now.
Wings Mobile, an Italian company headed by Antonio Milio, an Italian entrepreneur, has however chosen to take a totally different approach with by unveiling a smartphone with crypto-mining capabilities. Dubbed the Minephone WX (Wings WX), the smartphone will reward its user with a “prize” amounting to up to 2 ETH (Ethereum) on a monthly basis. This is some serious value, especially because Ethereum (ETH) and bitcoin (BTC) remain to be the top most valuable digital currencies on the planet.
How It Works
The limited-edition Minephone WX is basically a regular smartphone that uses glasses and steel to deliver on both durability and great visual appeal. At its core is a high-performance MediaTek Helio P60 oct-core SoC that powers the phones operating system and its “mining operations”. It also has 128 GB of internal storage, 8 GB RAM and two high resolution (24 + 16 MP) rear cameras.
Obviously, there is no specialized mining equipment that can fit it into existing smartphones in order to allow mining on the Minephone WX more efficient. As such, the actual mining occurs in a third-party mining pool which the phone is connected to through a Smart Contract. The phone then receives a daily reward based on the mining power contracted.
Now, this is definitely innovation at its best but it is still hard to see how it will all play – maybe it will be a success among crypto and tech enthusiasts, or maybe not.
