Sirin Lab's Finney could be the world's first blockchain-based smartphone

Sirin Labs, an Israel-based startup has just announced what they claim to be the "world's first blockchain-powered smartphone". Named Finney, after Hal Finney, the person who made the world's first Bitcoin transaction, it has just been announced for pre-orders.[caption id="attachment_4735481" align="alignnone" width="1024"]

The Sirin Labs Finney. Image: Sirin Labs[/caption]Aiming to make cryptocurrency more popular than it already is, the Finney features a unique design to have a second screen that slides up at the top. If the sliding bit reminds you of the recently launched Oppo Find X. Well, the motion is quite similar but the hidden screen basically conceals a cold-storage cryptocurrency wallet that supports a number of leading cryptocurrencies.According to a report by TechRadar, the second screen runs on a dedicated firmware that allows users to be sure of where their transaction is taking place.The default currency that you will be using with the Finney though is Sirin's SRN token. In fact, though the Finney comes with a price tag in dollars, if you decide to buy the smartphone, Sirin will automatically convert it into SRN before the payment is processed.The Finney runs on Android and comes with features that you would expect every other 2018 flagship to have. Priced at $1000, you get a 6-inch 18:9 display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 chipset, 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of onboard storage. It also gets a 12 MP f/1.8 rear camera and an 8 MP f/2.2 front camera. Powering the entire phone is a 3,280 mAh battery.

On the software side, things aren't very conventional either, since this is a blockchain-based smartphone. The Finney runs Sirin Lab's very own Sirin OS, which comes with a Cyber Protection suite. The company claims that this suite offers security services such as three-factor authentication, secure communications and a behaviour-based Intrusion Prevention System to ensure all your currency is kept safe.The Finney will possibly be shipped sometime in November, so it would be competing with HTC who also plan to release the Exodus within Q3 of this year.