Solana Announces Saga Mobile Launch Date, But Network Activity Declines

On April 13, Solana said that the security and encryption-sensitive Android flagship from Solana Mobile is available to those who pre-order.

She added that the company will start taking new orders for the device on May 8. The Saga crypto smartphone was originally announced in mid-2022.

She stated that the team has been using Saga for months, along with “hundreds of developers”.

Saga will be able to manage and store crypto assets, mint NFTs, and run decentralized applications from the Solana dApp store.

Moreover, the hardware specifications are also great. The Saga will come with the Snapdragon 8+ mobile platform, 12GB of memory, 512GB of storage, and a 6.67-inch OLED display. It will cost around $1,000, according to advertisement.

Saga is designed to compete with any leading smartphone in the market.

We are proud to bring Web3 to your fingertips with premium hardware from OsomPrivacypowered by the latest Android OS.

Take a look at our spec sheet 🧵 pic.twitter.com/UyKhLSGESn

– Solana Mobile 🌱1️⃣3️⃣ (solanamobile) April 13, 2023

Solana use slices

The device is now available for shipping in the US, EU, UK, Canada, Switzerland, Australia and New Zealand. He added that as part of the launch, Saga users will be able to claim their “Saga genesis token NFT” when setting up their devices.

The move comes at a time when Solana’s use and momentum are waning. The ecosystem has yet to recover from the fallout from the FTX crash since Sam Bankman-Fried funded the blockchain.

SBF is currently under house arrest, and FTX is going through a chaotic restructuring period.

Solana’s active portfolios are down 60% over the past three months, according to Solkan Analytics platform. In addition, they were in a downtrend for about six months before FTX’s demise.

Moreover, Solana DeFi is still about half of what it was before the FTX crash. The total insured value is currently around $539 million, according to DeFiLlama. This equates to a market share of less than 1%, so it’s a far cry from “killing” Ethereum, which maintains a dominant 60% market share for DeFi.

Moreover, these disruptive network outages continue to plague the ecosystem.

SOL price forecast

SOL prices are up about 4% on the day to $25, according to CoinGecko. The token has now gained an impressive 20% over the past week.

However, it has not yet recovered to the price levels it was trading at before FTX, while the overall cryptocurrency market is now higher.

SOL is still down over 90% from its peak price of $260 in November 2021.