Convert Image to blob in Expo React Native

Question

I am trying to upload images to Firebase storage from my expo application. Then I need to convert the URI to the blob that will be sent to firebase. I have tried both code samples below for the conversion but none of them is working and other answers on SO aren't specific to Expo apps.

What I've tried

  const blob = await new Promise( ( resolve, reject ) => {
    const xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
    xhr.onload = function () {
      resolve( xhr.response );
    };
    xhr.onerror = function ( e ) {
      console.log( e );
      reject( new TypeError( "Network request failed" ) );
    };
    xhr.responseType = "blob";
    xhr.open( "GET", uri, true );
    xhr.send( null );
  } );

I've also tried

const response = await fetch( uri );
const blob = await response.blob();

Sample error code

childPath.split is not a function. (In 'childPath.split('/')', 'childPath.split' is undefined)