XProtocol’s Ethereum Phone XForge Launching to Take on Solana Seeker

An entertainment-focused Ethereum layer-3 network named XProtocol said Wednesday that it’s releasing an Android-powered smartphone optimized for gaming later this year.

Dubbed XForge, the smartphone is being billed as the world’s first “DePIN phone,” using the layer-3 network for earning rewards and participating in airdrops, according to a press release.

Priced at $299, the XForge will feature 256GB of storage and 12GB of RAM, in addition to a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor, the company said. As a layer-3 network, Xprotocol is currently built on top of Base, the Coinbase-launched layer-2 scaling network on Ethereum.

Still, XProtocol said alongside its smartphone announcement that it will eventually migrate to its own layer-1 network to achieve “greater autonomy and scalability.” Initially, Base was chosen as the first stop for building XProtocol because of its need to handle many transactions at once.

The term DePIN, short for decentralized physical infrastructure networks, describes networks of physical hardware underpinned by blockchains. XProtocol said its network will be powered one day by software running on XForge handsets, in addition to so-called Xardian Nodes.

“XProtocol is pioneering a new era in blockchain technology,” said Saison Capital Partner Qin En, in a statement. “By combining the accessibility of mobile devices with the power of decentralized networks, XProtocol is setting a new standard.”

XProtocol’s announcement follows Solana Mobile’s foray into the crypto smartphone space with the release of the Saga last year. The subsidiary of Solana Labs recently unveiled details for its upcoming Seeker smartphone, which is striving to offer more features and functionality for less cash than its predecessor—as low as $450 for early pre-orders.

According to Solana Mobile, the Seeker will pack 128GB of storage along with 8GB of memory. The Seeker is also being advertised as an “airdrop magnet,” benefiting from an expected trove of community-led rewards.

XProtocol, on the other hand, said that it’s offering a “free node” to the first 10,000 XForge purchasers. Typically, decentralized networks are open, letting anyone participate in the process of validating transactions. According to XProtocol, the company has sold what is effectively a license to participate in the network being billed as an entertainment superchain.

Selling node licenses is a model popularized in the blockchain gaming world by Ethereum networks like Xai and Hychain, but it has now expanded to DePIN and mobile infrastructure with XProtocol and the XForge phone.

XProtocol has launched a testnet for the layer-3 network. And the company said that XProtocol’s mainnet will launch sometime in the fourth quarter of this year. More than 5,200 nodes have already been sold, with node operators earning a share of network tokens for supporting the chain over its first 48 months of operation.

The Cayman Islands-based firm announced that it had raised $800,000 in a strategic funding round in July, lifting XProtocol’s total amount raised to $5.2 million. Aside from Singapore-based Saison Capital, the funding round has seen participation from the venture capital firms Dragonfly and Caballeros Capital, as well as gaming hardware giant Razer.

Edited by Andrew Hayward