Solana Labs’ crypto smartphone, Saga, is set for public sale on May 8th. The phone, which features a Solana dApp marketplace, can send, receive, trade, and store cryptocurrencies while keeping private keys segregated. Pre-order devices are already shipping out.
The company’s ecosystem suffered after Anatoly Yakovenko introduced Saga in June 2022, causing some of its core technology to fail repeatedly. Nevertheless, the team behind the company continued to defend and push for progress in the ecosystem.
Discover The Future Of Mobile with Solana’s Saga
According to a report, Solana-focused companies’ employees have revealed that the Android smartphone is a risky but necessary investment in the future of cryptocurrency.
The phone, which was teased 10 months ago, doubles as a hardware wallet and is built on hardware from OSOM, with 512 GB of storage, two camera lenses, a 6.67-inch OLED display, and a fingerprint scanner. It will run on the latest Android operating system and costs $1,000.
The device’s security protocols also allow for the safe transfer of assets using Solana Mobile’s SMS APIs to improve signing experiences.
The company claims that Saga stands out from other phones due to its “Solana Mobile Stack” (SMS), a set of technologies for mobile that can open up Web3 experiences on mobile phones. It includes specialized add-ons that enable the phone to integrate cryptocurrency features into its hardware and software.
One of the security features of the SMS is the Saga’s customized secure element, which has a “seed vault” for storing private keys. It makes it more secure since the keys are kept separate from the phone’s other data.
The Solana dApp Store provides a platform for distributing Web3-native apps, free from the limitations and high fees enforced by other major Web2 app marketplaces.
Additionally, Saga has a “dApp” store exclusively for crypto apps, with over a dozen already available for download, including those for trading, inter-wallet communication, and digital collectibles, with more expected to be added in the future.
However, its dApp store won’t have “extractive fees” like Apple and Google’s 30% tax. Despite previous failures by HTC and Sirin Labs, Solana hopes to succeed as a crypto-focused smartphone.
As per the company, Saga is available to ship to the US, EU, the UK, Canada, Switzerland, Australia, and New Zealand and comes with a Welcome Pack from Solana Mobile and rewards from dApps.
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