Bitcoin Daily: SoFi, Coinbase Pair On Crypto Trading; Samsung Reveals Blockchain Partners

A group of oil and gas companies have announced a partnership that will create the first blockchain industry consortium in the U.S.

“Creating the OOC Oil and Gas Blockchain Consortium is a significant step toward establishing key blockchain standards, frameworks and capabilities for the oil and gas industry,” said Rebecca Hofmann, chairman of the board of directors, in a press release. “Blockchain technology is a catalyst for reimagining the way we do business, and this consortium represents a collaborative effort to explore the technology’s potential, and leverage learnings to drive industry adoption.”

In other news, Samsung presented its first blockchain partners for its upcoming Galaxy S10 smartphone during this week’s Samsung Mobile Business Summit session at MWC Barcelona 2019. CoinDesk reported that the phone’s Blockchain Keystore was revealed during the presentation, which included a logo for Cosmee, a beauty community service decentralized application (dapp), as well as the logo for the Enjin crypto gaming platform.

“Since last year, the blockchain team of Samsung Electronics Wireless Division has been searching for dapps that have been commercialized. As a result, Cosmochain has been selected as a partner of Galaxy S10. We did dozens of meetings to verify the model and technology,” said Howon Song, CEO of Cosmochain.

Social Finance (SoFi) has announced a partnership with Coinbase that will allow its users to buy digital currencies.

“Our target audience wants to see what the price of cryptocurrency is, and to buy it,” said SoFi CEO Anthony Noto, according to CNBC. “They have a desire to do that and, in many cases, they already are.”

While Noto would not disclose which digital coins will be available, he said the offering will launch in the second quarter of this year.

Blockchain startup Electroneum has released an $80 Android smartphone that enables users to mine crypto. The new M1 is a Google Mobile Services (GMS)-certified smartphone that comes with a cloud-mining technology integration so users can earn crypto. At this time, however, only Electroneum’s native token ETN can be mined, with a monthly return of “up to $3,” according to CoinDesk.