This one was sure to grab eyes and drop mouths. Anatoly Yakovenko, founder/ CEO of Solona, unveiled the first web 3.0 focused mobile phone at an auditorium conference in New York City yesterday. The phone was conceptualized by "Solona Mobile," a unit of Solona Labs, manufactured by Android, and is programmed using the recently designed software "Solona Mobile Stack, or, "SMS." SMS is a web 3 layer built specifically for mobile phones, "tightly integrated" with the Solona blockchain technology, of course.
The phone itself comes with 512 GB of memory, 12 GB of RAM, using Qualcomm's 8 Plus Gen 1 chip for processing, perceived through a 6.67 in OLED screen. It comes loaded with a 50 MP front camera and a 12 MP extra wide shooter. The phone was designed by company OSOM as the original OSOM OV1, but reimagined to fit Solona's mobile purpose. The phone is expected to be released in Q1 2023 under the price tag of $1000; although preorders with a $100 deposit were opened yesterday, as was Solona Mobile Stack software developer kit.
Solona Mobile Stack, according to Yakovenko, "offers an opensource, secure, optimized for web 3.0, and an easy-to-use path forward." This lets devs move forward creating dapps specific to mobile, and being able to maintain the "secure element" by utilizing private key management through the SMS applications. As such, the main features of SMS will be seed vault, mobile wallet adapter, Solona Pay for Android, as well as a Solona Dapp Store, an app distribution network on Android for dapps.
The seed vault can be described as a digital vault that runs on a separate layer from the rest of the phone, yet still accessible for interaction by the phones software. The seed vault is privy to the highest mobile tech security available.
The mobile wallet adapter is a protocol which connects native mobile and web applications to connect with wallets on a mobile device. This is a technology that has the potential to give every mobile device the opportunity to interact with a decentralized blockchain.
Solona Pay is a decentralized payment platform which runs on the Solona blockchain; SMS will include Solona Pay as it exists already, yet add mobile features such as QR codes AND a virtual card, which will give Solona Pay access to "tens of millions of merchants across the globe," according to Yahoo! Finance.
One of the talking points for the utility of the "Saga" was the more convenient accessiblity to NFT mintings without compromising security. Open Era co-founder, Irvin Cardenas, said this about the Solona phone's innovation on NFT access:
"NFTs will become an integral part of our lives. In order for Web3 to reach the mainstream, we need to enable digital assets such as NFTs to be used in our daily lives with our mobile devices in ways that are more seamless, interactive, and engaging. But, most importantly, in ways that neither compromise on security nor bend to traditional intermediary business models. Solana Mobile Stack and especially Seed Vault shows not only that this is possible but also that this is a reality today."
"We want to create the best mobile experiences for our users and are delighted that Solana's mobile stack will unlock new potential use cases. NFTs are becoming increasingly immersive—people talk about them and showcase them in their real lives. Interacting with NFTs should not occur in a vacuum on a laptop. The future is mobile. We're excited to support Solana's project with our Android app." Jack Lu, Magic Eden CEO and co-founder.
SOL is up nearly 10% on the news, currently trading hands at $39.96
Drop a comment below and us know if you'll be buying this device, or buying some or more SOL on this alpha.
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Soures: 1. Solana Mobile Stack begins new era of web3 with mobile-first Android platform (yahoo.com)
2. Solana Surging on Web3 Phone News Breakout Moment (business2community.com)
3. Solana Mobile debuts Saga, a flagship Android phone for web3 (yahoo.com)
