Crypto has finally gone mobile. Solana Labs, the company behind the Solana blockchain and SOL cryptocurrency, has announced the rollout of Saga, the first-ever web3-focused smartphone based on the Android operating system. According to a Twitter post, the long-awaited device is now available to order for the early adopters who have already pre-ordered it in January. Those who didn't make it will be able to catch up on May 8, when Solana starts accepting new orders.
The launch of Saga was first announced in June last year. "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," said Anatoly Yakovenko, the co-founder and CEO of Solana, at a conference held in New York. "So I think it's time for crypto to go mobile," he concluded.
Saga's goal is to implement crypto-related products and services on mobile devices to facilitate using digital assets in everyday circumstances instead of relying on notebook browsers. To make that happen, Solana partnered with OSOM, a tech company experienced in developing privacy-focused software and hardware, to deliver a physical product and relevant software according to Solana's specifications.
Read also: $KING, Solana's Answer To Ethereum's $PEPE, Lists on BitMart Exchange
The smartphone, offered at $1,000, comes with 512 GB of storage, a 6.67-inch OLED display, and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen1 processor paired with 12GB RAM. The setup process is straightforward and works practically like in any other Android device. Once you're done with that, you can start exploring the web3 features.
Solana equipped the phone with a mobile wallet adapter connecting decentralized apps (dapps) to wallets. The adapter is a part of Solana Mobile Stack (SMS), an open-source toolkit providing developers with a range of libraries for building Android-native web3-optimized applications on Solana. SMS was announced along with Saga last year.
One of Saga's key crypto features is the Seed Vault, a built-in custody solution. It allows users to import a seed phrase from another crypto wallet or, as Solana recommends, create a new one and keeps it linked to your fingerprint data in a fully secure environment on the smartphone, allegedly inaccessible even to the Android system. Solana also provides a native store for dapps. Currently, the stock includes only sixteen products spanning NFTs, DAOs, staking, and other categories, with more to be added soon.
