Chinese smartphone brand Honor released the first Snapdragon-powered handset to support the digital yuan, marking a milestone in the People’s Bank of China’s goal to develop hardware for the digital currency.

• The Magic 3 will support a digital yuan hardware wallet, and is built on Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon chip, the 888, Honor CEO George Zhao said during the release event yesterday.
• In its latest white paper, the central bank said that, unlike so-called soft wallets such as apps, hardware wallets come with hardware-level security.
• The PBoC has been pushing for new hardware applications of the digital yuan; tech companies and banks have come up with new devices, including ATMs and a hardware wallet on a walking cane.
• Honor was Huawei’s budget smartphone brand until November 2020, when the Shenzhen giant sold it to avoid U.S. sanctions.