{"id":364657,"date":"2025-02-02T04:58:08","date_gmt":"2025-02-01T23:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/?p=364657"},"modified":"2025-02-02T04:58:08","modified_gmt":"2025-02-01T23:28:08","slug":"why-jambo-could-be-the-onchain-apple-crypto-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/why-jambo-could-be-the-onchain-apple-crypto-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Jambo could be &#8216;the onchain Apple&#8217; &#8211; Crypto News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p><em>This is a segment from the Empire newsletter. To read full editions, <\/em><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/blockworks.co\/newsletter\/empire\"><em>subscribe<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" \/>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re just trying to be the onchain Apple.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Now that\u2019s a banger of a quote.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>James Zhang, founder of Jambo, said it to Empire host Santiago Santos in a <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/blockworks.co\/podcast\/empire\/ca6f038c-d367-11ef-b4c0-a740d0562de2\">bonus Empire episode last week<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Jambo, for those of you who may not be aware, is an onchain mobile network. We\u2019ll get more into it in a bit, but Zhang\u2019s points about really looking to give folks access to the digital economy stood out to me.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Right now, Jambo\u2019s biggest user base is in Latin America. Zhang originally thought the biggest user base would perhaps be Africa, but that hasn\u2019t been the case\u2026yet.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>As Santos noted, \u201cthe next JPMorgan doesn\u2019t look like JPMorgan. It looks like an MVNO with fintech services layered on top.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>People should be able to digitally access all the integrations without ever having to go into, say, a bank branch.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>For Jambo, that means not only reaching a user base, but ensuring those users are as loyal as I am to Apple. And that\u2019s where crypto comes in.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><em>And now you know.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Crypto Needs Its iPhone Moment | James Zhang\" width=\"740\" height=\"416\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/TWiyUIQV0Bs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em>Check out the bonus Jambo episode of Empire above<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I had a chance to chat with Zhang earlier this week, and I was curious how he\u2019d classify Jambo. Is it a DePIN? Is it more?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>What can I say, I\u2019m paid to be nosey.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>First let\u2019s start with the basics. Jambo\u2019s been around for a while, having last raised capital from a number of big VCs back in 2022. The round was led by both Pantera and Paradigm, if you want to be specific.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Zhang\u2019s the first one to admit that it was a totally different market when they last raised compared to now, and the team\u2019s been hustling. Even back in 2022, the reception for Jambo was \u201cgreat,\u201d Zhang noted. There\u2019s an appetite to disrupt the Latin American and African phone markets with a device that is \u201ccensorship resistant.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But after the 2022 raise, Jambo and Zhang had to go into \u201ccockroach mode\u201d to survive the bear. And now, well, we\u2019re here, on the other side.<\/p>\n<p>Zhang wouldn\u2019t turn down the opportunity to raise again, he admitted, especially because he finds this market trickier than a bear market.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe reason is because in the bear market, we had already raised funding. We had already built our team, and [then] it was just shipping product. And honestly, there weren\u2019t as many \u2026 you could say distractions, and \u2026 macro is distractions. But when one memecoin gets launched and sucks 90% of liquidity, it\u2019s a little tough on the rest of the market or any narrative, so for us, we just honestly want to see more stability going into a token launch,\u201d he told me.<\/p>\n<p>Zhang said that they\u2019ve never specifically branded as a DePIN though Jambo clearly has elements of that, given that it offers both hardware and networks.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you take our entire network together, it becomes one of the largest DePIN networks that users can tap into,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019d prefer if you think of them as a consumer-facing product, given that it\u2019s their specialty. Outside of the hardware offerings, they also launched a satellite program <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.globenewswire.com\/news-release\/2025\/01\/22\/3013262\/0\/en\/Jambo-launches-satellite-on-Solana-to-connect-global-network-of-JamboPhones.html\">earlier this week<\/a> to \u201cconnect all 700,000-plus devices,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe Zhang\u2019s really not that far off when he says he wants to be the onchain Apple.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" \/>\n<p><strong>Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/blockworks.co\/newsletter\/empire\">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/blockworks.co\/newsletter\/onthemargin\">Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Get alpha directly in your inbox with the <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/blockworks.co\/newsletter\/research\">0xResearch newsletter<\/a> \u2014 market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/blockworks.co\/newsletter\/lightspeed\">Subscribe to daily Solana news<\/a> from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is a segment from the Empire newsletter. To read full editions, subscribe. \u201cWe\u2019re just trying to be the onchain Apple.\u201d Now that\u2019s a banger of a quote.\u00a0 James Zhang, founder of Jambo, said it to Empire host Santiago Santos in a bonus Empire episode last week.\u00a0 Jambo, for those of you who may not [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364659,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[230,225,221,227,226,228,229,60,223,224,222],"class_list":["post-364657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptocurrency","tag-brave","tag-coinbase","tag-crypto","tag-decentralised","tag-decentralized","tag-decentralized-exchange","tag-erc-20","tag-featured","tag-meme-coin","tag-robinhood","tag-solana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364657"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":364661,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364657\/revisions\/364661"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}