Partnership between Sei and Xiaomi to integrate a pre-installed digital wallet on Xiaomi phones outside of China and the US, with stablecoin payments and wide global reach.
Key points:
The wallet enables the transfer of stable digital currencies from person to person, and makes payments to merchants via Mi Pay at over 20,000 retail stores.
The launch will begin in Hong Kong and the European Union during the second quarter of 2026, with initial coverage in Europe, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Africa.
Industry experts describe this move as the largest hardware distribution deal in the history of cryptocurrencies, surpassing previous initiatives by Samsung and Aptos.
On December 10, Sei announced a partnership with Xiaomi that enables the pre-installation of a cryptocurrency wallet and an application to discover blockchain services on all new Xiaomi phones sold outside of mainland China and the United States. The application relies on Sei's infrastructure and allows registration using Google or Xiaomi accounts, providing protection through multi-party computing technology.
The wallet allows users to send stablecoins from one person to another, with future plans to enable payment to merchants. According to the official blog, the initial phases will focus on Europe, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Africa, markets where Xiaomi already has a strong presence.
The two companies plan to launch stablecoin payments via the Mi Pay service and in over 20,000 retail stores affiliated with Xiaomi, starting from Hong Kong and the European Union approximately during the second quarter of 2026.
As noted by 'Jef Feng', co-founder of Sei Labs, this collaboration represents a critical turning point in the adoption of blockchain technologies. Co-founder 'Jay Jog' added that the goal is to make cryptocurrencies automatically available to the user, rather than having to search for them.
Xiaomi shipped about 168 million phones during 2024, capturing nearly 13% of the global smartphone market, placing the Sei application in front of tens of millions of new users annually without the need for any manual download.
The deal also includes the launch of a $5 million global mobile innovation program aimed at supporting developers working on building blockchain tools directed at end-users.
Sei and Xiaomi: The largest hardware distribution deal in the history of cryptocurrencies
Tanaka, the strategic advisor and ambassador for Sei, described this integration as the largest hardware distribution in the history of cryptocurrencies, in a post following the official announcement from the Sei network. He explained that no previous project has succeeded in reaching the level of integration within the operating system itself and at such a wide scale of distribution.
The cryptocurrency sector has seen similar initiatives before, but—as Tanaka noted—none have reached this scale or provided such a seamless integration experience.
In 2019, Klaytn partnered with Samsung to launch the Klaytn Phone, a special version of the Galaxy Note 10 that came with a pre-installed wallet and decentralized applications. However, this release was limited and sold only in South Korea without a wide rollout on Samsung devices globally.
After that in 2024, Aptos partnered with Jambo to launch the JamboPhone at a price of $99, which runs on Android and comes pre-loaded with the Petra wallet and Web3 applications. The device targeted emerging markets like Africa and Southeast Asia and was available in over 40 countries. However, Jambo is not a global manufacturer on the scale of Xiaomi, but rather a product specifically aimed at the cryptocurrency community, without massive annual shipping volumes.
There are also other cases, such as the Solana Saga and Seeker phones or the HTC Exodus device, which fall under the category of dedicated blockchain devices with limited production and sales. Despite the significant interest they received - as occurred when the Seeker was globally distributed - they do not represent a direct integration within widely popular smartphones.
Similarly, the NEAR network has a continuous use case through the KAI-Ching shopping and cashback application, developed by Cosmose AI and built on the NEAR protocol. The KaiKai lock screen application - which integrates KAI-Ching for payments and rewards - is pre-installed on phones from several Asian companies like OPPO and realme. However, this model does not come close in potential scale to the partnership recently announced by Sei with Xiaomi.
