With 25% layoffs, Messi can't save the world's "first" blockchain phone!

Recently, according to Israeli financial media Globes, the Finney blockchain mobile phone (hereinafter referred to as Finney) endorsed by Barcelona star Messi has experienced an unprecedented economic crisis. Because the sales of this blockchain mobile phone are far below the expected standard, its manufacturer Israeli communications technology company Sirin Labs had to start large-scale layoffs and layoffs of up to 25%.

Known as the world's first blockchain mobile phone

The concept of “blockchain mobile phone” was first proposed by Sirin Labs in September 2017.

On November 30, 2018, the world's first blockchain mobile phone was officially released in Barcelo, Spain, named Finney, and was starred by Barcelona star Messi.

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At the time, Finney turned out to be a revolution in the mobile phone industry. Its official description is: "Finney is equipped with a separate blockchain cold wallet. For security reasons, the wallet also has a built-in processor that allows users to transfer money on a separate LCD screen."

In addition, the Finney phone also has a built-in Decentralized Application Center (dCENTER) that integrates a number of DApps based on Ethereum, such as Encrypted Cat, Ethermon and IDEX Exchange.

In terms of user experience, the Finney phone has a PIN code encryption function specially designed for the software, and is synchronized with the fingerprint and pattern unlocking. The user can separately set a password different from the lock screen for the software, and add a shortcut collection and classification function to the DApp. It can be said that the user experience has been greatly improved.

Since it is the first blockchain phone, its price will not be low, up to $999. But now, due to poor sales, the official price has dropped to $ 899!

All of the above are descriptions of the information provided by Finney's official website. From the function described, the sales of this block-based Android smartphone should not be bad. Why is there a 25% layoff due to poor sales?

Strong blockchain heat? Perhaps another mystery

On the surface, the reason seems simple.

As the blockchain bubble slowly breaks down and the industry returns to calm, more and more people realize that blockchain is not a panacea, and not all things need to use blockchain. Moreover, looking at it, users who want to use blockchain mobile phones are a minority.

As a result, most consumers are not flustered by the high-security smartphone Finney launched by Sirin Labs, and sales are naturally less than expected, which is expected.

But Sirin Labs is the owner of a windfall, and it’s not bad.

In December 2017, Sirin Labs raised $158 million through ICO, plus $97 million previously raised, and raised $255 million since its inception.

But in less than half a year, Sirin Labs cut jobs by 25% due to poor sales of Finney, which is incredible.

Is there another reason?

Nowadays, not only the sales of Finney mobile phones are not good, even the price of the digital currency SRN issued by Sirin Labs has plummeted from the peak of 3.48 US dollars in January 2018 to 0.03 US dollars, which is as high as 99.14%.

In addition, Globes also broke the news that Sirin Labs has not paid employees for months. But this statement was denied by its founder, Moshe Hogeg, and said that employees have been paid the salary for the first three months of this year, and the salary in April will be paid in the near future.

Hogeg also said that the company plans to outsource some of its work and shift the focus of its future work to software development and product sales.

But Moshe Hogeg's words are hardly convincing, and it is not known whether the Finney mobile phone sales are the main reason for the large-scale layoffs of Sirin Labs, because looking at Hogeg's entire history, Sirin Labs is not affected by it. Lay off or close the first company affected by the business.

In January 2018, another company founded by Moshe Hogeg (a blockchain forecasting market platform, Stox) received a lawsuit from a Chinese company and was allegedly involved in misappropriating millions of dollars from investors, requiring Hogeg to pay up to 4.6 million. US dollar compensation. In addition, according to the news, the platform stopped all activities in Israel at the end of last year and fired all employees.

In 2017, Hogeg closed a company dedicated to photo sharing, Mobli, which raised $86 million in 2010 through stock offerings.

In addition, California has filed a lawsuit against Hogeg for at least $50 million. The plaintiff was Canadian Internet entrepreneur Adam Perzow. At the end of 2014, Perzow sold the investment.com domain name to Hogeg for more than $5 million. In this lawsuit, Perzow accused Hogeg and his partners of obtaining hundreds of millions of dollars from investors around the world through fraud.

So, the question is, is this Sirin Labs layoff, is it another deception by Adam Perzow to borrow the blockchain?

But no matter what, 25% of the layoffs did happen, and the official push has not been updated in 2 weeks…

Author | George

Source | Blockchain Base Camp (blockchain_camp)

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