Solana’s web3 phone provides an “opportunity” to compete with Google and Apple according to Solana’s management.
The layer-1 blockchain Solana announced its web3-focused smartphone Saga almost four months ago, but as the phone’s official release date draws near, the strategy has changed.
At Disrupt 2022, Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko said, “Our goal isn’t to sell 10 million units.” “25,001 to 50,000 units sold in the next year would be fantastic,” the company said.
Although successfully launching a new phone is difficult, as we have seen with the efforts of countless other companies, Yakovenko suggested that Solana is looking to approach the launch in a unique way.
Yakovenko added that this is a tool to draw developers. “This is a play for developers.”
Yakovenko spent the majority of his professional career at Qualcomm before founding Solana, and he has worked on the development of mobile devices for other significant tech firms like Facebook and Windows. It’s important to note that many of those failed. The main difference today, according to Yakovenko, is that it requires less capital.
One of the moon shots, according to Yakovenko. “We are able to do this because it is affordable to try. It won’t be prohibitively expensive or anything of the sort.
According to Yakovenko, the phone market has developed to the point where teams can quickly create a device with minor changes to an Android to enable a web3 experience. “The chance is now because we don’t have to make $10 million in sales right away. We can actually focus on a very small niche audience of Web3 users who use cryptocurrency frequently.
According to Yakovenko, if there is a web3 distribution channel for mobile cryptocurrency developers, it may allow them to create experiences outside of the digital asset ecosystem that is centered around laptops. He made fun of the fact that users wouldn’t need to log into four different programs to create a crypto transaction. We require those flywheels for the upcoming cycle.
Imagine that 50,000 to 100,000 people trade on Magic Eden every day, suggested Yakovenko. “With hundreds of millions of users, that is a more lucrative distribution channel for developers. Right now, these tiny niche groups are where Web3’s money is.
Separately, the web3-focused phone will let platforms and content producers grant digital ownership rights to businesses and users rather than charging the 30% tax that Apple and Google impose on app sales.
True digital ownership requires treating digital possessions like physical ones, which is not how Apple or Google are designed, according to Yakovenko.
They are designed around a rent-seeking model, in which the creator owns all the content and you, the user, rent it. Everyone is aware that when you purchase a video from Amazon, you don’t actually own it.
In light of the fact that true digital asset ownership would disrupt their business models, neither Google nor Apple are really interested in competing with web3. You can take the 30% fee and eat it, then give it to Apple if you’re the content creator and have an app on the iOS store. Magic Eden cannot add tax or consume it because that would reduce profits, nor can they sell a $10,000 NFT for $13,000 on the iOS app.
The chance is available right now, according to Yakovenko. “I don’t know what will need to change internally for Google and Apple to stop charging a 30% tax on apps. They simply can’t give it up in the next five years because it is so good.
There is a “wedge that exists” while those two mega companies continue to impose their 30% tax.
Saga wants to implement digital asset products and services so that users can use their cryptocurrency on a mobile device rather than a laptop browser to conduct transactions. Along with the launch of Saga, Solana Mobile Stack, also known as SMS, a web3 layer for Solana built on the phone, is also being announced.
In the next five years, Yakovenko predicted, “let’s say bitcoin genuinely increases from 10 million monthly active users to 100 million monthly active users, so does the SMS stack or the phone itself.
Then, perhaps Google or Apple might reconsider the fee and permit the kinds of web3 experiences that Saga is hoping to have.
That would be a victory, added Yakovenko. “In crypto, we would have prevailed for everyone. That’d be fantastic.