Unveiled in Hong Kong last week, Vertu's Metavertu II smartphone starts at a base fee of $5,100 but if you want the alligator skin finish over carbon fibre, you'd have to cough out $9,300.

Vertu's main selling point has always been its use of luxury materials and high tech in its products. This new smartphone caters for the crypto-rich class of individuals. Built with an array of Web3-friendly features and a dedicated centralised system for operating dApps, Metavertu II is unlocking a future in streamlining crypto user experience with the plethora of opportunities in the Web3 industry.

Vertu CEO, Gary Chan, in an email interview with Decrypt, revealed, "We aspire to cater to discerning, unconventional, deeply thoughtful, and non-conformist users in the high-net-worth segment."

After the emergence of Web3 technology, many ultra-rich individuals have emerged and many luxury brands like Tiffany and Gucci are taking turns in providing their specific needs. With this in mind, millionaire crypto holders are the obvious target market of Vertu.

"The crypto-rich aspire to showcase their uniquely distinctive personalities to the world and they fundamentally share similarities with the demographic we originally serve," Chan said, consolidating on the stance that millionaire crypto holders show off their picture-for-picture non-fungible tokens like CryptoPunks and Bored Apes.

Web3 phones focus on providing extra security and anonymity to users via blockchain technology. They generally use encryption software to prevent big corporations, like Facebook and Apple, from spying on them while allowing seamless integration of crypto wallets with DeFi dApps like Aave or Uniswap. This allows users of Web3 phones to be the earliest participants of the decentralised world that blockchain technology promises.

Metavertu II was carefully crafted to bring various best-in-class technologies to its users. Part of these technologies is the I-DID identity system, an infrastructure that links the phone's IMEI number to the user's decentralised identifiers (DID), eliminating the possibility of duplicate registrations.

"The I-DID system empowers users to control their digital identity. By ensuring that one phone corresponds to one ID at the hardware level, the system effectively prevents malicious actors from controlling fake identity accounts masquerading as the genuine and unique user," Chan said.

In addition to the I-DID system, the phone has a zero-knowledge capability, facilitating blockchain integration effortlessly. Chan then called for the integration of AI with Web3 via blockchain technology to create AI applications. He noted that the approach would further restore data sovereignty to individuals and preclude the extreme centralisation that allows third parties to meddle with people's data.

Despite the constant roll-out of Web3 products, Chan was concerned that some of the technologies may be ahead of their time. "Decentralisation is a journey," Chan recounted, "and some of our product features may currently be ahead of user adoption, offering functionalities that users might not immediately utilise." Web3's adoption is still an ongoing process and tech firms, including Vertu, are exploring an in-between model where a single product runs on both Web2 and Web3 operating systems, a concept called Web2.5.