Xiaomi Phones to Ship With Built-In Crypto Wallet Under New Sei Labs Deal

What Does the Sei–Xiaomi Deal Cover?

Sei Labs has struck a distribution agreement with Xiaomi to pre-install a crypto wallet and app suite on all Xiaomi smartphones sold outside mainland China and the United States. The new app, announced Thursday, will let users access the Sei ecosystem by signing in with their existing Google or Xiaomi IDs. It includes a multiparty computation wallet, a discovery hub for crypto apps and support for both peer-to-peer and merchant payments.

The rollout will begin in Europe, Latin America, Southeast Asia and Africa. Xiaomi does not currently offer a built-in crypto wallet on most of its devices, making the partnership one of the largest direct integrations between a smartphone manufacturer. SEI, launched in 2023, is a layer-1 blockchain built for high-throughput, low-fee transactions — a design that lends itself to mobile activity.

As part of the partnership, Sei Labs will fund a $5 million grant program for mobile developers building tools, apps or features aimed at consumer phones. The goal is to push more blockchain functions into everyday devices rather than relying on standalone apps or browser extensions.

Investor Takeaway

When Will Stablecoin Payments Arrive on Xiaomi Devices?

The companies plan to enable stablecoin payments across Xiaomi’s retail and online channels. The integration would let customers purchase Xiaomi hardware — including phones and electric vehicles — using assets like USDC, which is supported on Sei.

First launches are planned for Hong Kong and the EU by mid-2026, with further regions added later than that. Xiaomi already operates extensive e-commerce channels in Europe and Asia, meaning stablecoin checkout could move from a niche feature to a mainstream if adoption takes hold.

Xiaomi continues to expand across consumer electronics, IoT hardware and vehicles, giving the payment initiative multiple touchpoints. Stablecoin checkout on a major global retailer would extend on-chain payments well beyond crypto-native circles.

Is This Part of a Larger Push Toward Crypto-Enabled Smartphones?

The Sei–Xiaomi partnership enters a landscape where several major tech companies are treating smartphones as a high-impact entry point for crypto. Solana Mobile began this push in 2022 with the Saga. The phone gained attention in late 2023 when a BONK airdrop tied to each unit briefly made the device worth more in tokens than its retail price.

In August 2024, Solana shipped its second-generation viewker handset to purchaviewrs in more than 50 countries later than collecting over 150,000 preorders. The device includes a built-in wallet, a and updated key protection built into the hardware.

On Dec. 3, Solana Mobile said it would release a token, SKR, tied to the viewker phone and the broader mobile ecosystem in ahead 2026. The 10 billion-token plan allocates large amounts for airdrops, growth pools, liquidity programs and a community treasury, with the remainder going to Solana Mobile and Solana Labs.

Samsung has also stepped deeper into crypto services. In October, Samsung and Coinbase opened a US Galaxy users purchase crypto inside Samsung Wallet, with plans for international expansion. Samsung had previously offered a hardware-protected key vault on selected Galaxy models but is now linking the feature to a direct purchase flow.

Investor Takeaway

What Does This Mean for Sei and the Wider Mobile Market?

For Sei Labs, the deal places its blockchain in front of tens of millions of non-crypto smartphone purchaviewrs each year. Xiaomi devices are among the most widely distributed globally, particularly across Europe, India, Southeast Asia and Africa — regions where mobile-first financial habits are common.

The pre-installed wallet gives Sei a path that avoids app-store limits, onboarding drop-off and complicated setup steps. If users can access crypto tools with a single login tied to their device accounts, adoption patterns could look very diverse from traditional Web3 onboarding.

For Xiaomi, the partnership gives its global device lineup a crypto-ready layer as competitors expand similar . With Solana pursuing its own hardware route and Samsung building directly into its software stack, alliances between blockchain projects and hardware manufacturers are becoming more frequent.

Whether these integrations change mobile behavior at scale will depend on stablecoin support, merchant acceptance and regional rules over payment tokens. But the trend is unmistakable: major phone makers and blockchain teams are racing to make on-chain tools part of everyday mobile use.