After hearing about the trademarks for Samsung's blockchain and cryptocurrency software, we decided to dig around a little deeper. We can confirm that the company is indeed developing one and that it may be launched with the Galaxy S10.
Samsung's cryptocurrency service will essentially have two parts. A cold wallet for saving cryptocurrency, public and private keys as well as signing private keys for cryptocurrency transactions and a crypto wallet for transfers, viewing account information and transaction history. Names for Samsung's cold wallet and crypto wallet have not yet been finalized.
Samsung bitcoin app will securely store cryptocurrencies
Cryptocurrencies are stored in hot and cold digital wallets. They hold the public and private keys required for moving the digital currency. Cold wallets are considered to be more secure as they are kept offline. Hackers can't access the keys in those wallets remotely and physical access to the device having the cold wallet is required to retrieve them.
Samsung's cold wallet app will enable users to import their existing wallets from third-party services like Metamask or TrustWallet. They will also be able to create a new one in the app itself. The cryptocurrencies and tokens supported initially may include Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ethereum-derived token ERC20 and Bitcoin Cash.
Accounts created using the app are stored on the blockchain network with complete anonymity. Samsung won't have access to the data. The only way for users to access it would be through the recovery phrase. The 12-24 word phrase is a standard recovery method for all wallet services. Therefore, the user is responsible for storing this phrase safely because their cryptocurrency account cannot be restored without it.
The Samsung Bitcoin app will offer an additional layer of security by requiring authentication. The security options only include PIN and fingerprint at this point in time, yet another indication that Samsung may ditch the iris scanner on the Galaxy S10.
There's not a lot of information available about the cryptocurrency wallet app right now, the one that would presumably allow users to transfer cryptocurrencies. However, We'll keep digging into this to find out more.
Does the possibility of having a cryptocurrency service on the Galaxy S10 excite you? Do you think that it's going to be a good differentiating factor for the next flagship? Let us know in the comments below.
