Solana Labs, an investor in the blockchain, is putting out an Android device for the Solana network called “Saga.”
At an event in New York City on Thursday, the future gadget was shown off as a modified OSOM phone with features for a crypto wallet and the “Solana Mobile Stack (SMS)” software development kit for Web3 apps. Anatoly Yakovenko, the CEO of Solana Labs, says it will cost about $1,000 and be on the market in early 2023.
The phone is Solana’s biggest bet yet on growth that is focused on mobile. It will have a Web3 platform store, an integrated “Solana Pay” for on-chain payments using QR codes, a mobile wallet adaptor, and a “seed vault” for storing private keys deep in the phone.
“Everything is going mobile. In most countries most of ht eaccess happens through mobile phones,” Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of FTX and a big supporter of Solana, pointed out that during the event. “But crypto mobile is behind the times,” he said, noting how hard it is to use dapps on mobile devices right now.
“The best way to deal with this is to have your real wallet built into your phone,” he says.
Solana Labs said it would work with other important companies in the ecosystem to make the phone. These companies include Magic Eden, the largest NFT marketplace, Phantom, the biggest wallet provider, and Orca, a decentralized finance platform. Executives from all three companies were there to talk about the upcoming mobile experience.
The Solana Foundation has put up $10 million to encourage the development of SMS mobile applications.
Yakovenko, one of the co-founders of Solana, said in a news release,“We live our lives on our mobile devices – except for Web3 because there hasn’t been a mobile-centric approach to private key management. The Solana Mobile Stack shows a new path forward on Solana that is open source, secure, optimized for web3, and easy to use.”
It’s not the first time Web3 has tried out a smartphone. Sirin Labs tried to get a blockchain-native phone out in 2018, but the project didn’t get off the ground, which led to layoffs and lawsuits.
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