By Staff Writer
South Korean electronics conglomerate Samsung is developing its own blockchain network based on Ethereum and may even issue its own token, reports Coindesk Korea, quoting a source “familiar with the internal situation” of Samsung.
The project, which is being undertaken by the company’s blockchain task force, is still at an experimental stage, according to the source.
Interestingly, the Samsung blockchain could eventually be a “hybrid model,” combining the features of both public and private blockchains, the unnamed source has opined, even though the current prototype being tested is likely to be a private blockchain.
The Samsung blockchain project is likely to lead to the culmination of a “Samsung Coin” that could be publicly traded on cryptocurrency exchanges. That should potentially allow the South Korean tech giant to bring blockchain to its payment app Samsung Pay.
This is not the first time the firm behind the eponymous mobile phone brand has made a foray into the domain of blockchain. Two months ago, it rolled out a new generation, the Galaxy S10, which has the ability to store cryptocurrency private keys and other features such as support blockchain-based digital signatures.
In March, Samsung officially revealed the cryptocurrency wallet, which is compatible with ether (ETH) and Ethereum-based ERC20 tokens, although notably not bitcoin in the foresseable future.