Sirin Labs Is Set To Corner The Market With First Blockchain Smartphone Store

By Kapil Gauhar

In an attempt to corner the market for investors and cryptocurrency enthusiasts, Sirin Labs has been focused on developing a blockchain smartphone. The company opened its first retail store in London on January 15th, 2019.

An Israeli startup, Sirin Labs has been focused on the blockchain smartphone for quite some time. In 2016, the company launched the blockchain-based smartphone, Solarin, that was clearly meant for affluent crypto traders as well as investors since it was $14,000 worth.

However, the smartphone didn’t gain any real traction, and the company went back to the drawing board. In March 2017, they returned with the Finney smartphone, that raised over $150 million in a successful ICO. This smartphone started taking pre-orders late last year and was worth $999.

The smartphone includes several features for crypto investors, like a cold storage wallet, its own crypto-payment service, and runs on its native Sirin operating system, that can operate dApps. The smartphone was named after Hal Finney, who is a computer scientist and one of the earliest adopters of Bitcoin, who breathed his last in 2014.

Sirin Labs revamped its London retail store completely to adjust for the Finney smartphone, that began shipping last week. The location was quite strategic since the company hopes that the smartphone store becomes a gathering place for crypto enthusiasts in the area. The store is particularly located in the Mayfair district of London, and will sell smartphone accessories and clothing as well.

Kenes Rakisheve, the chairman of Sirin Labs, gave his reasons why he believed that London was the perfect location for store inauguration. He said,

“In 2018, London’s tech sector attracted significantly more investment than other European centers, raising more than £1.8 billion. It is the ideal first location for the Finney, the first mass-market blockchain phone in the world, to go on sale.”

Also, there is another store which is set to open in Tokyo, Japan. However, the particular day for the opening of this second store is not revealed yet.