After Saga, is Solana going to play with the "cloud phone" concept again?

Author: Luccy

Source: BlockBeats

Last year, the DePIN narrative ignited interest in Helium (Mobile). Although DePIN seemed inconspicuous during the "Bitcoin bull market," it still brought surprises to the crypto industry. At the recent ETHDenver 2024 conference, DePIN was listed as a hot track, and now the success of io.net has once again propelled the DePIN narrative.

There are many projects in the DePIN field, and the massive airdrop of 30 million BONK tokens previously helped Saga gain significant attention. The airdrop's value surpassed the selling price of the phone itself, making the previously overlooked crypto phone "hard to come by," even raising its already high retail price.

However, the uses and functionalities of crypto phones have yet to be fully explored, and a new concept has emerged—cloud phones.

New Concept in the DePIN Field: Cloud Phones

APhone claims to be the first decentralized cloud-based smartphone, launched on Solana. According to its official website, APhone can achieve seamless integration with its processing power, storage capacity, and GPU, providing continuous, high-performance access.

Additionally, supported by Aethir's cutting-edge decentralized cloud technology, APhone ensures higher security, privacy, and user protection. At the same time, it offers countless smartphone features within a single device, providing a comprehensive and advanced mobile experience.

The application token of the APhone ecosystem, PHONE, has a total supply of 21 billion, with 85% owned by the community treasury. Currently, APhone has launched a points program, where points will be converted into PHONE tokens.

The PHONE token will grant holders voting rights in managing the APhone DAO. Besides governance, APhone must be pre-installed through payment in PHONE, and holding a certain amount of PHONE tokens can unlock special access and customization.

APhone aims to become the ultimate gateway for approved web3 applications, similar to the App Store on iPhone. The documentation of APhone provides detailed insights into its operational mechanisms, but as of now, its user experience feels akin to simulating a mobile interface on a computer, remaining a rather "abstract" concept.

Crypto Phones Make a Comeback

In the DePIN field, crypto phones are more familiar than "cloud phones." Especially with the recent launch of the Saga phone by Solana, which was sold out due to airdrop expectations, even Solana co-founder Anatoly is using one.

Compared to regular iPhones or Android phones, the design of crypto phones emphasizes blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and decentralized applications. The most common feature is enhanced security to protect your cryptocurrencies and private keys, while some can run a full Bitcoin node and even be used for mining.

HTC Opens the Door to Crypto Phones

In fact, the origin of crypto phones can be traced back to 2019 when HTC collaborated with Binance to launch the limited edition Exodus 1 phone. Subsequently, HTC released the second blockchain phone, Exodus 1s.

Exodus 1S is a significantly simplified version of Exodus 1, priced at $244, featuring a built-in Zion hardware wallet that allows users to store and send Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, and other ERC-20 tokens based on the Ethereum blockchain. Most importantly, Exodus 1s can act as a full Bitcoin node, meaning they can verify and execute transactions on the device itself without relying on other services.

However, the problem is that to run the node, the Exodus 1 must remain plugged in and connected to a Wi-Fi network, essentially rendering it useless as a smartphone. Additionally, the dapps provided by Exodus 1s are nearly worthless.

Not only does Exodus 1s fail to showcase the advantages of a crypto phone, but according to a Decrypt article, its advantages as a regular smartphone are limited to long battery life, while its disadvantages are more pronounced, featuring a lightweight plastic structure that feels cheap, a low-end Snapdragon 435 processor, and only a 13MP rear camera.

Nonetheless, the emergence of Exodus 1s undoubtedly opened the door to the crypto phone market.

In the same year, Samsung launched the crypto phone Galaxy S10, priced at $899. Not only did it improve performance and appearance compared to regular smartphones, but as a crypto phone, Galaxy S10 supports dozens of currencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, LEO tokens, and Chainlink. Meanwhile, its dapp lineup includes games, social media, and financial applications. With the Snapdragon 855 processor, Galaxy S10 also features its own trusted execution environment. Subsequently, Samsung collaborated with Kakao to release a blockchain version of KlaytnPhone, named Galaxy Note 10.

In addition to Samsung, other crypto phones have emerged, such as the Finney phone from Sirin Labs, which activates the wallet by sliding (priced at $999), the modular Pundi XPhone, and the cheapest crypto phone Electroneum M1 (priced at $80).

Saga's Massive Airdrop Leads to New Crypto Phone Gameplay

The high price and half-baked user experience of early crypto phone attempts failed to gain any meaningful traction, but Solana's Saga phone succeeded.

In July 2022, Solana released the web3 flagship Android phone, Saga. At that time, the market was in a bear phase, and with no favorable factors in the crypto phone sector, most users were unwilling to spend $1,000 on Saga. As a result, early sales were slow, with about 20-30 units sold daily, far from the target of 20,000 units. Even after the price was significantly reduced by 40% to $599 in August 2023, the phone still struggled to attract buyers.

However, the most crucial factor was that Saga airdropped 30 million BONK tokens to every phone owner. In November 2023, BONK broke resistance and surged, causing the value of the airdrop to exceed the cost of the phone itself, changing the fate of Saga.

The demand for Saga phones surged significantly, and by December 15, 2023, all 15,000 Solana Saga phones were sold out in a single day. The frenzy surrounding the phone reached its peak. This crypto phone, which initially garnered no attention even at a price of $599, saw resale prices on secondary markets like eBay soar to $5,000.

After the phones sold out, the hype surrounding the Solana Saga phone intensified, with various projects announcing a series of additional rewards for Saga phone users, such as Access Protocol distributing 100,000 ACS tokens, Saga Monkes airdropping 8,505 NFTs, and the Solana meme project Samoyedcoin airdropping 1,250 SAMO tokens, along with many projects like Solend dedicated to airdropping tokens to Saga owners, while others like Helium offered benefits such as a one-month free trial of Helium Mobile.

It is reported that Solana plans to launch the second generation of crypto phones in the first half of 2025, tentatively priced at $450. Many projects, including Solend, Helius, Chads, and Solcial, have already announced airdrops, benefits, and giveaways for Saga 2 owners.

The success of the first generation allowed Saga 2 to achieve 100,000 pre-orders within just 30 days of its release, prompting other crypto projects to start launching their own crypto phones. Among them, Aptos announced a partnership with Jambo Technology to launch JamboPhone, designed specifically for Gen Z users in emerging markets in Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America.

What Are the Opportunities for Crypto Phones?

The success of Saga can be attributed to the economic stimulus brought by airdrop expectations. After all, looking at the development of crypto phones themselves, even by 2024, the blockchain infrastructure remains in its early stages, and the building blocks for developing high-performance crypto phones seem to be lacking.

To this day, the DeFi user experience and the ecosystem still lack interesting applications, let alone the app stores for crypto phones from 6 or 7 years ago. Besides the limited selection of applications provided, crypto phones are relatively expensive compared to other regular smartphones on the market, and they lack practical tools for everyday cryptocurrency use, making it challenging for consumers to find demand in the crypto phone market.

However, as internet access expands globally, more people are handling cryptocurrency and traditional financial transactions on smartphones. Accessing the DeFi ecosystem through affordable phones could attract billions of dollars into the cryptocurrency space. Additionally, crypto-native phones and app stores will allow developers to reach thousands of advanced DeFi users and enable them to innovate freely without facing the opaque guidelines and fees associated with markets like Google Play Store or Apple App Store.

In the long run, crypto phones can be seen as tools that prioritize values such as freedom, self-custody, and privacy, ensuring that users can control their assets and digital rights. In this context, crypto phones come with built-in secure enclaves, similar to vaults within the phone, capable of securely storing private keys and isolating them from other activities on the phone.

One day in the future, we may look back at the BONK airdrop and how this event triggered a shift in the power dynamics of the tech industry. Perhaps crypto phones can truly bring cryptocurrencies into the mainstream, but only time will tell.