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Vitalik Buterin is likely to have provided financial support to ethOS, a project touted as the world's first ethereum mobile operating system.
According to data from Arkham, ethereum (eth) co-founder Vitalik Buterin sent 199.9 eth, valued at over $517,000, to a Gnosis Safe multisig contract. The main speculation is that Buterin’s transfer was a donation to the ethereum telephony project called ethOS.
This open-source initiative, developed by pseudonymous developers at Freedom Factory, was initially launched on select Android devices in late 2022 and rolled out again the following year.
ethOS is an ethereum-native mobile operating system that allows users to write blockchain code and deploy eth-based decentralized applications. The team, formed in 2021, plans to release additional hardware offerings this year or next, according to the official ethOS website.
Is ethOS ethereum's answer to Solana Saga?
Fifteen years after bitcoin’s (btc) debut, the blockchain industry is focused on achieving mass adoption by providing easy access to Web3 and real-world utility.
Integrating blockchain standards with mobile devices such as smartphones has often been a challenge, but developments in recent years suggest progress is on the way.
In June 2022, Solana Labs, the entity behind Solana (SOL), introduced the Saga mobile device. The hardware was built on the Android operating system and preloaded with Solana decentralized applications such as Phantom Wallet.
Slow sales at first cast doubt on Saga's success, and it took almost a year for Solana to sell 20,000 units. However, Saga 2.0 bettered this record, selling 100,000 units in pre-orders within a month.
At press time, Saga appeared to be ahead of ethOS, although the two projects have taken different approaches to merging blockchain and mobile technology. Both ethereum and Solana blockchains have seen significant growth over the past year. If both ethOS and Saga continue to develop, they could eventually become full-fledged competitors in the mobile blockchain market.
