Honor Releases First Smartphone With Digital Yuan Hardware Wallet
- Powered by a Snapdragon chip, Magic 3 will be the first smartphones to support a digital yuan hardware wallet, providing a financial payment-level security protection.
- Honor is one of China’s largest smartphone manufacturers, which separated from Huawei back in 2020 to avoid U.S. sanctions.
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One of China’s largest smartphone manufacturers, Honor, has released the first device to support a hardware wallet for the country’s digital yuan, the company said in a press release on 13 August.
According to the announcement, Honor’s Magic 3 series will be the first Snapdragon-powered smartphones to support a hardware wallet for the People’s Bank of China’s (PBoC) CBDC project. The company also claimed that unlike soft wallets such as apps, its hardware version will be able to provide its users with a “financial payment-level security protection”.
Honor was created as an offshoot of Chinese smartphone giant Huawei back in 2013, and was marketed as a budget smartphone brand — with its products selling for between $150 and $220 — which helped it secure more than 200 million users. Huawei, however, sold the brand back in November 2020 in order to spare it from U.S. sanctions. The Magic 3 series are Honor’s first flagship smartphones released after it became a separate company from Huawei.
China remains the most likely global power to first release a widely used digital form of its national currency. The country’s central bank, the PBoC, has been ramping up its CBDC trials since last year, and finally in March opened its digital yuan trials to the public. Back in July, the central bank released a digital yuan “Progress of Research & Development” paper, which claimed that the CBDC has already been used on over 70 million transactions with a total value of around $5 billion
- The head of China’s central bank digital currency institute said the e-CNY has undergone a major upgrade, and should be made available as an option in all retail scenarios.
- The PBOC official noted that platforms can integrate the CBDC in the short term using QR codes, and focus on upgrading their payment tools in the long run.
Office building of the People’s Bank of China. Flickr
- The current governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, announced he is joining the race for the 47th president of the U.S. during a Twitter Spaces event on Wednesday.
- During his speech DeSantis declared his support for Bitcoin and the wider crypto space, noting that if Joe Biden is re-elected “they’ll probably end up killing it”.
- Planned for 1 April, the CBDC trial will involve real consumers and real transactions, though they will be limited to a certain number of customers and transfers.
- The pilot, however, will not be opened to the general public in its first phase, and will only be opened to customers chosen by the 13 participating local banks.