How you appraise the Exodus 1, the so-called blockchain phone that HTC has touted for months, depends on your perspective. As a smartphone with a cryptocurrency side gig? Surprisingly good! But if you were hoping the Exodus 1 would fire the first shots in the Web 3.0 revolution? Well, at ease, friend.
In the time that I’ve spent with the Exodus 1, I’ve been struck by just how capable it is as a smartphone. That shouldn’t come as a surprise: HTC has a history of making solid, sometimes risk-taking devices. And it was HTC engineers, after all, behind much of the design and manufacturing of Google’s excellent early Pixel lineup. It knows from quality.
And yet, so much of the Exodus 1 rollout has centered around the blockchain. (“Let My Data Go,” the product website proclaims, in perhaps a bit of an overstep.) Which, yes, it serves as a hardware wallet for storing cryptocurrency and allows owners local control over their private keys, a surprisingly radical notion in a world where data is the new oil. But even Phil Chen, HTC’s decentralized chief officer and Exodus mastermind, acknowledges that these are the earliest days.
“Right now, we’re still working on the fundamentals,” says Chen. “Making sure that it’s secure, working on the key recovery mechanism.”
That manifests itself in ways seen and unseen. But first, the good: For a cryptocurrency novice, the HTC Exodus 1 offers an accessible experience. It comes preloaded with Blockfolio, an app for tracking price fluctuations of various coins (a blockchain version of the Stocks app, basically), and Cryptokitties, which is, well, here. More importantly, HTC has stocked the Exodus 1 with the Zion wallet, which allows you to store and transact with Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, and a few dozen tokens and collectibles built on the Ethereum blockchain.
Until now, the Exodus 1 has been available as a preorder, available for purchase in cryptocurrency only. In March, you'll be able to buy it with genuine US dollars. Which underscores, maybe, the underlying tension of this device. The future's just not quite ready yet.
It only takes a minute or so to get set up with Zion. Just create a six-digit pin, get your 12-digit recovery phrase—and write it down somewhere safe, for the love of ether—and voila. You’re ready to HODL. I had a colleague send a pittance of Litecoin to my shiny new wallet address, and geared up to experience the decentralized internet of Web 3.0 in its full glory.
It turns out there’s not much to experience yet. The good news is that the Exodus 1 provides something of a roadmap, or at least a brightly painted arrow, through a partnership with the Opera browser. Opera hosts a decentralized app store, making it relatively easy to find the so-called DApps (that’s “decentralized apps”) designed to let everyone maintain control of their data. The less good news: the Opera Dapp store offers around 30 options, including a handful of exchanges and more than one Pokémon knock-off. There’s a crypto-based Airbnb, and a couple of blockchain social networks. The Exodus 1 will also feature integrations with Nodle, a decentralized IoT connectivity provider, and an activity tracker called Numbers. But overall, it feels a bit like apartment hunting in a high-rise where most units are still just exposed framing.
“You’re not using your Facebook sign-in, your Apple ID. You’re using a digital identity that you own. Although the interaction is similar, it’s fundamentally different,” says Chen, who fully acknowledges that it’s still very early days. “It’s like a proto, preliminary example of consumers starting to own their digital identities.”