San Francisco crypto firm Solana developing web3 mobile phone

Solana Labs, the San Francisco crypto firm behind the Solana ecosystem, announced its upcoming "web3" mobile phone that will integrate with the Solana blockchain.

The Solana Saga is an android phone that is currently available for pre-order and is expected to be available in early 2023. It's not exactly clear how a web3 smartphone will be different than its predecessors other than being able to run some web3 apps that before would run only on desktops. Web3 apps are often built on decentralized blockchains and are often developed through input from a community that has a financial stake in the project through the issuance of tokens.

“We chose the Saga name because the story of crypto is still being written,” said Raj Gokal, co-founder of Solana, in a press statement. “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.”

The Saga will cost $1,000 and will have a 6.67" OLED display, 12 GB RAM and 512 GB storage.

The phone was unveiled at an event in New York City today, where Solana also announced the Solana Mobile Stack, a set of tools for developers to build mobile versions of Solana apps and wallets.

The hardware for the Saga phone is being developed by OSOM, a privacy-focused hardware development firm based in Cupertino.

"Every day, I hear stories of people leaving dinners, conferences, and vacations to get back to their computers and sign important transactions," said Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko in a blog post. "The mints, trades, listings, and transfers critical to the daily life of crypto-lovers are dragging us away from our lives with others. The only companies with the resources to materialize the self-custody mobile future we’re all dreaming of, Apple and Google, have had no updates to give on their roadmaps for crypto. It’s time for web3 devs to start building for mobile usage instead of around mobile usage. The blockers to achieving this goal are clear: The app store policies of Google and Apple haven’t evolved for web3. The custody solutions on phones haven’t materialized. The software and hardware haven’t been natively integrated."

The move by Solana is clearly geared toward pushing aspects of web3 apps towards mass adoption, instead of its current status as a niche hobby for only the most technically inclined.