Starting in 2026, Xiaomi will bundle a native SEI wallet on millions of smartphones as part of a broader push to bring crypto to everyday users.
Summary
Xiaomi and Sei partner on embedded crypto wallet
The Sei Development Foundation, a non-profit that supports the Sei network, has signed a global partnership with Xiaomi to embed its crypto wallet and discovery app directly into new phones. Beginning in 2026, all Xiaomi smartphones sold outside mainland China and the United States will come with the software pre-installed.
Xiaomi is the worlds third-largest mobile vendor, with a market share of over 13%, trailing only Apple and Samsung. This scale gives Sei a powerful distribution channel for onboarding new users into crypto without requiring them to search for or download a separate app.
The application, built by Sei Labs, will allow users to send peer-to-peer payments, access decentralized applications, and explore a wide range of Web3 products. Moreover, the wallet will act as a discovery hub, guiding users toward onchain services through an interface designed for mainstream audiences.
Stablecoin payments and retail integration
Beyond basic wallet functions, Sei plans to introduce stablecoin payments at more than 20,000 Xiaomi retail stores worldwide. The rollout will start in Hong Kong and the European Union, with customers able to pay for smartphones, tablets and even electric scooters using stablecoins such as USDC.
According to a press release shared with CoinDesk, the collaboration is expected to give millions of people their first direct access to crypto. However, the impact will be especially strong in markets where Xiaomi dominates, such as Greece with a 36.9% share and India with 24.2%.
The company sees this as a bridge between traditional retail and digital assets, with stablecoin transactions settling over the Sei blockchain. That said, the success of this effort will depend on user experience, regulatory clarity and merchant readiness in each region.
Performance focus and onchain finance ambitions
Sei Labs Co-Founder Jay Jog argued that most blockchains have underinvested in performance. In an interview with CoinDesk during Devconnect Buenos Aires last month, he said the team is building infrastructure for the next wave of activity, including payments, trading and real-world financial volume.
Jog described the networks ambition as creating a kind of decentralized NASDAQ, capable of handling up to 200,000 transactions per second. Moreover, Sei aims to bring a broad financial ecosystem onchain, from stock trading platforms to point-of-sale systems inside physical stores.
To achieve this, Sei uses a parallelized Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) architecture that can process thousands of transactions per second, with finality in under 400 milliseconds. This near-instant settlement is designed to match or exceed the responsiveness consumers expect from traditional payment rails.
Global Mobile Innovation Program and developer funding
To drive adoption on mobile, the Sei Development Foundation has launched a $5 million Global Mobile Innovation Program. The fund is meant to support developers building consumer-facing applications optimized for smartphones and other mobile devices.
However, Jog acknowledged in the interview that capital alone will not guarantee network growth. He noted that the biggest bottleneck for many Web3 projects is not fundraising, but finding customers and securing effective distribution channels that put products in front of users.
In that context, having a Sei wallet pre-installed on millions of Xiaomi devices could provide a powerful solution. Instead of competing for attention in crowded app stores, projects deployed on Sei can reach users through a default wallet environment already present on their phones.
From searching for crypto to crypto finding the user
Jog contrasted the Sei experience with older blockchain, where users often wait anxiously for confirmations. On Sei, he said, a payment can be finalized so quickly that “you blink an eye and the payment is finalized,” which may ease concerns for first-time users and merchants.
This shift in speed and accessibility underpins the broader narrative of mobile crypto adoption. Rather than requiring users to hunt for specialized tools and guides, the network wants to make Web3 functionality visible and usable the moment a device is powered on.
Ultimately, Jog summed up the strategy by saying that the industry is moving “from a world where crypto is something you have to find, to one where it finds you.” If successful, the Xiaomi partnership and Sei mobile integration could mark a significant step toward mainstream, onchain payments and applications.
In summary, embedding a crypto wallet into Xiaomi smartphones, combined with retail stablecoin support and a $5 million developer program, positions Sei to test whether integrated hardware distribution and high-speed blockchain infrastructure can push Web3 into everyday consumer life.
