The price of the Solana native crypto token SOL is rising nearly 10% this morning at $40.92 per coin following the presentation of a new Solana-powered Web3 smartphone that will allow users to connect to decentralized apps (dApps) within the ecosystem seamlessly.
According to the developing team behind Solana Mobile, a new subsidiary of Solana Labs, Saga was the name given to this Android phone. The team expects to make pre-orders available in early 2023 and the cost will be around $1,000.
The phone will feature some unique functionalities and features including a mobile wallet adapter, a seed vault for safely storing private keys and see phrases, and the Solana Pay app.
Solana will manage to incorporate these features via a recently developed operating system called the Solana Mobile Stack (SMS), which is has been built to run alongside Android. The Software Development Kit (SDK) for the system has already been made available to developers.
In addition, Solana (SOL) will be creating a dApp Store through which users will be able to easily download and still Web3 applications on their mobile phones. The company clarified that it will not be charging any platform fees and that it will co-exist with web2 marketplaces such as Google Play on Android.
With the incorporation of this marketplace, it will be easier for dApps to obtain the required permissions to obtain data from users. This opens up a world of possibilities for the development of play-to-earn (P2E) games, shopping interfaces, payment solutions, and direct messaging platforms.
More Details About the Solana Saga Phone
Saga was designed and will be manufactured by a company called OSOM. The phone was previously marketed as the OSOM OV1 and has been repurposed to fit Solana’s demands.
The phone features a 6.67-inch 120Hz OLED display and has 512GB of storage memory and 12GB of RAM. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chip has been selected as the phone’s processor. Saga will also have a 50 MP front camera that comes with an added 12 MP ultra-wide shooter.
The Solana Foundation Offers Grants to SMS Developers
To accelerate the development of dApps within the Solana ecosystem, the firm has created a $10 million grant program for developers who would like to build on the SMS.
“Everything is going mobile. In most countries, most of the access happens through mobile phones”, commented Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of FTX and one of Solana’s most prominent backers shortly after the announcement was made.
“The best solution for this is having the actual wallet built into your phone”, he added.
In addition, Anatoly Yakovenko, the co-founder of Solana stated: “Saga sets a new standard for the web3 experience on mobile”.
Alongside Yakovenko, his partner Raj Gokal stated that “this is the next chapter of this narrative and we believe opening up crypto to mobile will lead to greater adoption, better understanding, and more opportunities”.
Network Outages and a High Price Remain Saga’s Key Challenges
Solana gained popularity last year after the network presented a solution that allowed holders of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to mint their digital artwork on the project’s blockchain cheaply compared to the high fees that were being charged by doing so in the Ethereum network.
However, there have been many incidents lately concerning the proper functioning of the network as Solana has experienced various downtimes including a six-hour long outage that took place earlier this month.
According to a report from Cryptopolitan, the network went dark as much as seven times last year. On two of those occasions, the outage was caused by a denial-of-service (DDoS) attack.
Meanwhile, five outages have reportedly occurred this year including one that took place on April 30 when NFT minting bots congested the network by sending over 6 million transaction requests per second.
Even though both the project’s founders and supporters claim that Solana can be the ultimate Ethereum-killer, the network’s poor performance remains a key challenge to overcome in its path to becoming the go-to blockchain for mobile-centric web3 applications.
In addition, the $1,000 price tag automatically classifies the Saga phone as a high-end device. Considering that crypto enthusiasts who fully understand the potential of web3 are not such a large audience, it remains to be seen if this price tag will actually be a barrier for new adopters to embrace the smartphone.
Finally, despite today’s uptick, the price of Solana (SOL) is still down 76.4% since the year started. Both the crypto winter and the network’s constant outages have influenced the price action.
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