Telecommunications company Vodafone is taking steps to leverage SIM card technology in order to meet the expected surge in demand for crypto transactions on mobile phones. 

In an interview with Yahoo Finance Future Focus, David Palmer, Vodafone’s blockchain lead, revealed that the company is pushing to advance the use of blockchain technology on mobile devices for managing crypto transactions.

“Within each mobile phone is a SIM card and we have focused on linking the mobile phone SIM card to digital wallets, identity and blockchains, using the cryptography we have in those SIM cards for that blockchain integration,” Palmer said.

Vodafone to Use Cryptographic Capabilities Embedded in SIM Cards

By harnessing the cryptographic capabilities embedded in the SIM cards, Vodafone aims to integrate them with blockchain technology, enabling seamless transactions.

Palmer said he foresees a future where there will be approximately 5.6 billion blockchain-based digital wallets by 2030, serving as gateways to financial services. 

He specifically highlighted the use of public blockchains like Ethereum, citing their increasing speed and security. 

However, he acknowledged that regulatory hurdles need to be addressed, particularly in the context of mainstream financial services and the existing sanctions-related restrictions on using public blockchains.

Vodafone is trying to turn your phone’s SIM card into a crypto wallet https://t.co/CTF2Q1hlWK

— Yahoo Finance UK (@YahooFinanceUK) May 3, 2024

One notable innovation from Vodafone in this domain is the PairPoint Digital Asset Broker platform. 

Palmer explained that PairPoint facilitates transactions between public blockchains, such as Ethereum, and private blockchains like Onyx by JPMorgan, which utilizes smart contracts to enable seamless integration. 

The platform acts as an intermediary for large enterprises seeking to write to a public blockchain, with the transactions securely logged on Vodafone’s blockchain.

Smart contracts, leveraging features such as account abstraction, enable cross-chain interoperability.

Vodafone Experiences With P2P Micro-Payment Transactions

Vodafone’s journey in this space began with early experiments involving peer-to-peer micro-payment transactions. 

Later, the company integrated SIM card technology with blockchain, introducing interoperable “digital identity passports.” 

These passports, anchored on the blockchain, safely store private keys to digital wallets within the SIM card’s hardware module.

This progress ultimately led to the development of Vodafone’s PairPoint platform, which provides decentralized digital identities to internet of things (IoT) devices, allowing them to operate across different organizations and systems. 

Palmer illustrated the potential applications of this concept, envisioning scenarios where devices equipped with hardware wallets can autonomously authenticate and execute transactions. 

For instance, an electric autonomous vehicle could independently pay for its charging at a charging station.

However, Palmer emphasized the criticality of securing these wallets against cyber threats, acknowledging that they would be prime targets for hackers. 

In October last year, Vodafone’s Digital Asset Broker (DAB) announced a collaborative proof of concept with Chainlink Labs, Sumitomo Corporation, and InnoWave. 

The initiative’s goal was to tackle existing obstacles in the $32 trillion global trade ecosystem. 

The partners revealed their efforts to improve the exchange of vital trade documents across multiple platforms and blockchains, focusing on security and interoperability.

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