Solana Launches New Web 3 Smartphone ‘Saga’ To Bring Crypto Closer to Real World

24. Jun 2022 Posted by Akolkar B on News

In a bold step, the Solana blockchain team announced that its will launching be a new Android smartphone Saga which will cater to the Web 3.0 community. The upcoming smartphone from Solana will come with specialty crypto wallet functions.

Furthermore, Solana also announced its Solana Mobile Stack (SMS) software development kit for Web 3 programs. During an event at New York on Thursday, Solana Labs CEO Anatoly Yakovenko said that the smartphone will cost around $1,000 and will be available by early 2023.

The idea behind launching the Saga smartphone is getting crypto closer to the mobile world. The Solana Saga smartphone will feature Web3 dapp (decentralized app) store. It will also have an integrated Solana Pay feature facilitating QR-code-based on-chain payments. The Saga smartphone will also have a mobile wallet adapter along with a “seed vault” to store private keys securely in the handset.

Speaking at the event on Thursday, Solana Labs CEO Anatoly Yakovenko said: “This is something that I fundamentally believe the industry needs to do. We didn’t see a single crypto feature at the Apple developer conference 13 years after Bitcoin was alive. People will pull out their laptops in the middle of dates so they don’t miss an NFT minting opportunity. So I think it’s time for crypto to go mobile”.

The executive also said that the Solana phone app store will not take a cut of sales from the deeper as in the case of Apple or Google. “There will be no extractive fees,” Yakovenko said.

By implementing these digital asset products and services, users of Solana Saga will be able to easily transact through their device. To build the entire ecosystem for its smartphone, Solana is partnering with industry players like NFT marketplace Magic Eden, wallet provide Phantom, and decentralized finance (DeFi) platform Orca.

The Solana Foundation has pledged $10 million in funds for the development of mobile apps on its SMS platform. “We live our lives on our mobile devices – except for Web3 because there hasn’t been a mobile-centric approach to private key management,” Yakovenko, said. “The Solana Mobile Stack shows a new path forward on Solana that is open source, secure, optimized for Web3 and easy to use.”

Industry heavyweights like FTX chairman Sam Bankman-Fried have extended their support for the new development from Solana.