Polygon x Nothing’s New Web3 Phone

Polygon has plans to launch a new web3 phone. Alongside tech startup Nothing, the blockchain has announced it will launch the device. But Nothing isn’t the only company with a blockchain smartphone in the works. It seems everyone, DappRadar included, is in build-mode while the market cools down.

• The Polygon blockchain outstrips Ethereum in terms of unique active wallets that have connected with the blockchain in the past three months. Both of them lag behind Solana though.
• HTC is also launching a Polygon-native smartphone and Solana has announced its own blockchain phone called Saga.
• Smartphone manufacturers aren’t the only ones building new products. DappRadar’s new mobile-native app is dropping soon.

Web3 smartphones seem like the logical evolution for both communications tech companies and blockchain platforms. The average American reportedly spends just under three hours a day on their phone. So if there’s one way to reach a new audience, going through their smartphones seems like a good idea.

Both and Polygon have recently announced plans to bring their new web3-native devices to market. As the days go by, we’re getting a better idea of what this means and how it might affect the wider integration of blockchain technology into daily life.

What is Polygon?

Polygon is a layer2, or sidechain, built on the Ethereum blockchain. It was built to add flexibility, scalability and sustainability to the Ethereum mainnet. As more dapps were built on the latter, transaction speeds went down and costs went up.

With Polygon, the idea is to bring down costs and make transactions quicker. At the same time, the layer2 network benefits from Ethereum’s strong security and interoperability.

Data for April to June shows that Polygon leads Ethereum in the number of unique active wallets (UAW) to connect with dapps built on the network. 131,937 UAWs interacted with Polygon dapps during Q2 where 83,440 connected with Ethereum.

Solana is ahead of both of these, with 170,642 UAWs connecting to its blockchain. Solana may have had a few PR missteps in the past few months, but this hasn’t stopped the platform from pushing ahead with its own web3 smartphone.

Now, Nothing, a tech startup, has announced a partnership with Polygon to develop a blockchain-native device, specifically for the network.

Polygon, Nothing, and their new web3 phone

Nothing is a London-based company that wants to ‘remove the barriers between people and technology’. Their goal with their new web3 smartphone is to enable NFT drops straight to their Android-based phone.

The campaign is called ‘Nothing Community Dots’ and people who receive an NFT will gain access to exclusive content. Perks include merchandise and entry to unique offline events.

Nothing’s new product announcement comes in the wake of Taiwanese company HTC’s own launch of its Desire 22 Pro. The smartphone comes with an in-built crypto wallet and a virtual reality headset pairing. 

Having a web3 wallet as standard on a smartphone could have a huge impact on how the mass market views blockchain technology. Current suspicions and uncertainties towards crypto and NFTs could begin to disappear as more people start to see them as normal features of the internet.

Opting for Polygon

Interestingly, more mobile phone makers are opting for Polygon as the native blockchain for the devices. This might have something to do with the speed at which new dapps are getting approved on the network.

We saw earlier that Solana is ahead of both Ethereum and Polygon in terms of UAWs connecting with dapps on its network. But in terms of news dapps in its pipeline, it lags far behind the other two.

In April, May and June of this year, 218 dapps were approved for hosting on Polygon. In contrast, Ethereum approved 177 new dapps in that time and Solana only 25.

Web3 builds apps in the bear market

Nothing, HTC and Solana aren’t the only ones making new tools. DappRadar is currently full steam ahead. We’ve been passing milestone after milestone recently and our roadmap just keeps getting longer and more exciting.

Not only did we launch cross-chain staking last week, our brand new mobile-native application is just around the corner. A release date is imminent and I’ve heard on the developers’ grapevine that users can expect it in their pockets very soon.

For now, go and stake your tokens and earn some RADAR, ETH and or BNB. You can also read about our official launch on BNB Chain and our partnership with ApeSwap.