Solana on Thursday launched a Web 3.0 phone dubbed “Saga” in a move to tap into the burgeoning number of mobile phone users accessing digital assets.

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Fast facts

  • The Android mobile phone by Solana Mobile, a unit of Solana Labs, is “tightly integrated” with the Solana blockchain to make it easy and secure to transact in Web 3.0 and manage digital assets, such as tokens and NFTs, the company said in a press release.
  • The firm also introduced the Solana Mobile Stack, a framework for Android that would allow developers to create mobile experiences for wallets and apps on the blockchain and create a “Secure Element” for private key management.
  • The Solana Mobile Stack SDK was made available to developers on Wednesday with the Saga phone available for pre-orders for delivery in early 2023.
  • Saga is designed and made by OSOM, an Android development company with experience building computing hardware for Google, Apple, and Intel, among others, a press release said.
  • “The world needs novel hardware to embrace the future that is web3, and building out an ecosystem that looks to the future without being burdened by past legacy ecosystems is hugely exciting for us,” said Jason Keats, cofounder and CEO of OSOM.
  • At the company’s estimated price of US$1,000, the Saga phone will be competing with flagship models by Apple, Samsung and other mobile phone companies with a strong ecosystem of software developers that can develop alternative Web 3.0 applications that are blockchain-agnostic.   

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