- The Saga Mobile sale goes live on 8 May, 2023.
- The phone prioritizes Web3 technology to easily allow users to trade in cryptocurrencies and interact with decentralized applications (dApps).
On April 13th, Solana announced the launch of its Saga Mobile, a high-security Android device that is specifically designed for cryptocurrency users. The product is available to those who had pre-ordered it, with new orders set to commence on 8th May. Originally slated for a mid-2022 release, Solana revealed that its team had been using Saga for several months now, working with “hundreds of developers” to ensure optimal performance.
Features Of The Powerful Crypto Smartphone
Saga Mobile is useful in storing and managing crypto assets, minting NFTs from the Solana dApp store, and running other dApps. Additionally, the product boasts impressive hardware specifications, which includes a Snapdragon 8+ mobile platform, 12GB RAM and 512GB memory storage with a 6.67 inch OLED display. The price is approximately a thousand dollars, and is built to compete with flagship smartphones in the market.
Solana is proud to bring Web3 technology right to the fingertips of users, utilizing premium hardware from Osom Privacy, a company that provides privacy tools to secure data for users, and powered by the latest Android OS. Now, despite the excitement surrounding the product launch, Solana reported a drop in network activity, which might impact the adoption of Saga Mobile.
The Saga Mobile is available for shipment in several countries, including the United States (U.S), European Union (EU), United Kingdom (UK), Canada, New Zealand and Australia. As part of the launch, users can claim “Saga Genesis Token NFTs” after setting up their Saga mobile. However, this launch comes at a time when Solana’s usage and momentum have been declining. The ecosystem is yet to recover from the fallout of the FTX (cryptocurrency exchange) collapse.
The Saga mobile boasts native Web3 functionality. It has a native secure wallet, with few available dApps. The phone’s intuitive interface, attractive design and robust features make it a useful device for cryptocurrency users. It features metallic green side buttons, which is quite unique, a rounded triangular titanium camera module on the back, with a stainless steel frame, and ceramic backing to make it stand out. The battery life is robust and reliable with a 4,110mAh cell that offers wireless charging.
Why Has Network Activity Declined For Solana?
According to Solana analytics platform, its active wallets have decreased by 60% over the last three months, Solana’s DeFi has been in decline for months and decreased by almost 50% since the fall of FTX. Data from DeFi TVL aggregator DeFiLlama, shows that the Total Value Locked (TVL) of Solana is about $539 million, which is less than 1% of the market share, leaving Ethereum dominating the DeFi market share at 60%.
On February 25, Solana experienced its first outage of 2023, which lasted for 19 hours and 20 minutes, causing concerns about the design of the blockchain. In response to the network outage, validators attempted to restart the network twice over the weekend. However, Solana was only processing 93 transactions per second (TPS) during this period. Eventually the validator community opted for a synchronized chain restart of the network due to the performance degradation.
The decision to restart the network was suggested by the engineers working to debug the issues and the validator community jointly decided to downgrade to the previous stable release, v1.13.6.Furthermore. The Solana team had later stated that no user transactions were impacted or rolled back. Despite SOL prices increasing by nearly 4% to $25 according to CoinGecko, the token remains down by over 90% from its November 2021 high of $260.