HTC announced plans to offer a blockchain smartphone, which will be “dedicated to decentralised applications and security”.

Called Exodus, the company placed a heavy emphasis on the smartphone’s security credentials: it will include trusted hardware and enable users to control their data, which will live on the phone rather than in the cloud.

It will support decentralised applications (DApps), with smartphones acting as nodes on a decentralised network: “we want to double and triple the number of nodes of Ethereum and Bitcoin”.

Overseeing the work is Phil Chen, described as “decentralised chief officer”, who was previously an HTC product manager and worked on the first Android devices (as well as HTC’s less successful Facebook phone).

The vendor provided little detail in terms of the hardware specifications, availability or price of Exodus.

HTC is not the only company looking at blockchain – Sirin Labs is also readying such a device. Reports earlier this year also suggested Huawei may be interested in licensing Sirin’s technology to run blockchain applications.