Blockchain platform Solana launches Android smartphone 'Saga' for Web3.0

Solana Labs, the promoter of the eponymous blockchain and cryptocurrency token, has now announced the plan to launch its own, Android-based blockchain smartphone with the name Solana Saga.

The device will cost around $1000 and will be launched early next year, as per the report.

Anatoly Yakovenko, the co-founder of Solana, said, "Developers have been blocked for too long from creating truly decentralized mobile apps because the existing gatekeeper model just doesn't work anymore. We live our lives on our mobile devices – except for web3 because there hasn't been a mobile-centric approach to private key management. The Solana Mobile Stack shows a new path forward on Solana that is open source, secure, optimized for web3, and easy to use."

Raj Gokal, a co-founder of Solana, said, "Developers can now bring the power of Solana to the computers in our pockets, not just our backpacks. Solana can revolutionize so much of what we do every day, but we need to open the possibilities for decentralized apps on our mobile devices in order for this potential to be realized."

The smartphone seeks to address the fact that most web3 services, so far, do not particularly run very well on smartphones- despite large chunks of humanity living in a mobile-first world.

The Solana Saga will, thus, include a siloed “vault” that users can store their private crypto keys in, feature a mobile wallet adapter that can allow users to link any of the third-party wallets supporting the Solana blockchain to the Solana wallet, a QR based Solana Play feature that can allow users to make on-chain crypto payments, and a decentralized apps (dapps) store for access to several web3 apps and games.

At the time of the announcement, Solana executives claimed that they would partner across the country to unify features that could be accessed via this Solana blockchain-based smartphone. The company also said that, unlike Apple and Google, Solana would not be taking a cut from the developers who build and publish dapps for the Solana web3 app store.

The smartphone is not being made from scratch by Solana - it is a modified version of a device known as the OSOM OV1. The latter is the first smartphone built by the designers and engineers who worked at Essential, the now-defunct Andy Rubin Venture.