The upcoming June 23 launch of Solana Labs' Web3 smartphone, Saga, was announced by Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko in New York City. The device will be on sale in the first quarter of 2023, contain 512 GB of storage, and a 6.67-inch OLED display.
Yakovenko said at the launch that he thinks cryptocurrency "fundamentally has to do this." Because appropriate technological links have not yet been made, he said that although we live through mobile phones, we do not live in Web 3.
I really feel that the industry needs to take this action, said Yakovenko. 13 years after Bitcoin's inception, "We didn't see a single crypto feature at the Apple developer conference."
In order to take advantage of an NFT minting opportunity, people will bring out their laptops during dates, Yakovenko joked. Yakovenko continued, "I think it's time for crypto to become mobile.
Saga plans to include digital asset products and services so that users won't even need to use a laptop browser to conduct cryptocurrency transactions. A web3 layer for Solana developed on the phone, the Solana Mobile Stack, or SMS, was also introduced by Yakovenko in addition to Saga.
Steven Laver, mobile engineering lead at Solana Labs, said that Web3 "still seems like we're in the year 2007." "SMS may develop experiences for the community... on Solana, SMS devices will be treated as first-class citizens."
Sam Bankman-Fried, a backer of Solana and the CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, claims that smartphone accessibility for bitcoin items is currently missing. He continued by saying that one solution is to pair a mobile device with a hardware wallet, much like what Solana is doing.
When launched by Solana, the device will cost $1,000, although it is now possible to pre-order it with a $100 payment. The cost of the SOL cryptocurrency rose by 10% to almost $40 per coin after the news.
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