Solana Saga has only been in operation for two years before shutting down. Can the fully transitioned Seeker avoid repeating the same mistakes?

Written by: Frank, PANews

Once highly anticipated by the industry, the Web3 phone Solana Saga has terminated its technical support just two years after its release. It went from being overlooked to sparking a buying frenzy due to airdrops, and then to a hasty closure, leaving nearly 20,000 early users' devices as “electronic bricks.”

The dramatic twist of Saga has sparked sighs and profound questioning throughout the industry: Is the route of crypto phones a false proposition? Is Saga's brief yet brilliant lifecycle an expensive failed experiment, or a torch that illuminates an unconventional path to success for future entrants? As Solana Mobile fully shifts to the second-generation product Seeker, these questions have become even more urgent.

Only two years after announcing the cessation of support, the multiple considerations behind Solana Mobile.

The hasty conclusion of Saga is unexpected.

According to the conventions of traditional smartphone manufacturers, technical support for a mobile phone usually lasts 5 to 7 years. However, the support for Saga ended after only 2 years. The main reason behind this may reveal the significant differences in operation between smart hardware products and typical Web3 projects.

From a business perspective, the Saga project itself is almost destined to be a financial loss. The Saga phone has achieved total sales of about 20,000 units, far short of its sales target of 50,000 units, which is simply insufficient to cover the research and development, production, and marketing costs of high-end hardware. Even niche models from traditional phone manufacturers typically reach sales volumes in the hundreds of thousands to ensure operational viability. Providing long-term support for an old product line with only 20,000 users is a heavy financial burden.

Compounding the issue, Saga's hardware partner OSOM went bankrupt in September 2024, making long-term firmware and driver updates nearly impossible. As a result, Solana Mobile's decision to abandon Saga became a rational, even inevitable, business move. They chose to cut losses and focus their limited resources on projects with a higher likelihood of success.

From a hardware perspective, the Saga itself is a well-equipped high-end Android phone. Compared to ordinary phones, its built-in security design and dApp applications indeed address the pain points of transaction security and dApp access for heavy crypto users. However, the failure of Saga proves that these “product capabilities” improvements are not enough to convince users to pay a $1000 premium for it, as the vast majority of Web3 tasks can also be completed on regular phones, with just slight differences in experience.

The most direct threat is the sharp increase in security risks. As new security vulnerabilities continue to be discovered, the Saga phone will become increasingly vulnerable to hacking. This is undoubtedly fatal for a device whose core design philosophy is to securely handle crypto assets. Secondly, there is the issue of 'diminishing utility.' With the continuous iterations of the Android operating system and dApps, the Saga may not be able to run newer versions of applications, ultimately leading to 'potential application failures' and functionality loss.

Moreover, the past sales miracles of Saga were not due to the market rediscovering its product capabilities as a phone, but rather the value of its financial arbitrage tool being unearthed. However, this model is unsustainable and fraught with risks. It attracts speculators seeking short-term profits rather than genuine users loyal to the product and ecosystem. Once airdrop expectations diminish or the market cools, this demand will quickly evaporate.

As the most important hardware device for humans in today's society, the actual usage scenarios of mobile phones go far beyond just airdrops and cryptocurrency activities. This is also the main reason why the Saga sells, but it seems that no one is using it.

However, the direct consequence of this business decision is borne by the 20,000 Saga users. Solana Mobile announced that it will stop all software updates and security patches, meaning these devices will be permanently stuck on the last security version from November 2024.

Surprisingly, there is hardly any noticeable reaction from users on social media regarding the news of the cessation of technical support. Solana Mobile also chose to remain silent after the media reports, only increasing the frequency of retweets related to Seeker activities. This phenomenon suggests that the actual number of active users of Saga may be far lower than the proportion of users who received the airdrop.

From being ignored to being in high demand, luxurious airdrops have led to a turnaround in sales.

The lifecycle of Solana Saga resembles that of a roller coaster track.

In May 2023, the Saga phone was officially launched, priced at up to $1000, directly targeting the flagship models of Apple and Samsung. Solana Mobile's initial goal was to create a native Web3 device for crypto users and developers, breaking the dual monopoly of Apple and Google through hardware-level security guarantees (seed vault) and an uncensored dApp store. However, this grand narrative failed to resonate with consumers.

After its launch, the market reaction to the Saga phone has been exceptionally tepid. As of early December 2023, more than six months after its release, Saga's sales have only hovered between 2,200 and 2,500 units, far from the “developer ecosystem threshold” of 25,000 to 50,000 units set by Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko. In an effort to reverse the downturn, Solana Mobile significantly reduced the price by 40% to $599 in August of the same year, but this move still failed to effectively stimulate demand. The mainstream tech community has been particularly brutal, with renowned reviewer Marques Brownlee (MKBHD) labeling it as “the most failed smartphone of 2023,” a title that accurately encapsulates Saga's awkward situation at the time.

Just as Saga was about to be forgotten by the market, an unexpected catalyst completely turned the situation around - the MEME coin BONK. Each Saga phone comes with an airdrop of 30 million BONK tokens, which had negligible value at the beginning of the sale. However, with the comprehensive recovery of the Solana ecosystem by the end of 2023, the price of BONK skyrocketed exponentially.

By mid-December 2023, the value of this airdrop had exceeded $1000, far higher than the phone's selling price of $599 at that time. A clear arbitrage opportunity was born: buy the phone, claim the airdrop, and you could gain instant profit. This news spread virally on social media, and Saga's narrative instantly transformed from a failed tech product to a hot financial tool.

Sales have skyrocketed. In just 48 hours, the sales of Saga increased by more than ten times and quickly sold out in the U.S. and European markets. A frenzied secondary market has emerged, with brand new, unopened Saga phones selling for as much as $5,000 on platforms like eBay, over eight times their retail price. The Saga has become more than just a phone; it is a “ticket” to potential future airdrop wealth.

The unexpected sell-out of Saga provides a new perspective for Solana Mobile, significantly stimulating market demand through the anticipation of potential airdrops. They quickly seized the opportunity and announced the launch of the second-generation phone “Chapter 2” (later renamed Seeker) in January 2024, just one month after the Saga sell-out. As mentioned earlier, Seeker learned from Saga's lessons: the price was significantly reduced to $450-500, with hardware configurations more suitable for a mid-range positioning, targeting a broader mass market.

The market's response has been explosive. Driven by strong expectations for future airdrops, Seeker received over 60,000 orders in the first three weeks of open reservations, ultimately surpassing 150,000 reservations, expected to generate over $67.5 million in revenue. Even before the phones were shipped, the value of the tokens airdropped to reservers, such as $MEW and $MANEKI , had already exceeded the purchase cost of the phones. From this perspective, Saga is more like a stepping stone, helping the second-generation product Seeker build an ecological foundation with hundreds of thousands of users and a sales operation route driven by airdrops.

However, for over 150,000 Seeker bookers, will the devices in their hands also face the same fate as Saga two years later?

Completely shifting to the second-generation Seeker device, can it break the Web3 mobile dilemma?

Saga's experience forces us to re-examine the core proposition of Web3 phones. Is it an innovation with genuine product strength, or is it a “pseudo-demand” that can only survive with external incentives?

As a second-generation model, Seeker is attempting to avoid repeating past mistakes. After halting support for Saga, Solana Mobile has now fully shifted to the second-generation product Seeker, a phone priced lower and still focused on crypto features, with a starting price of $500, which is only half of the Saga's launch price. Early pre-order users can also enjoy a $50 discount. In addition to being more reasonably priced, Seeker inherits some features from its predecessor while also upgrading its hardware and adding several user-friendly new features, such as SeekerID and an improved decentralized app store.

It is worth noting that Seeker also plans to launch a native ecosystem token SKR to incentivize developers and users, promote ecosystem development, and achieve better alignment. Although the specific details of the token have not been announced, the official statement indicates that it will be directly distributed to developers and users. Furthermore, Seeker has strengthened the incentive programs for linking other applications and activities within the mobile ecosystem.

For example, Seeker and the wallet application Backpack launched an event that waives the first $1,000 transaction fee on the Seeker mobile phone. On October 23, Moonbirds also launched the Seeker X Moonbirds SBT airdrop for Seeker. According to official data, there are currently over 160 applications built within the Seeker ecosystem.

But can this ecological construction truly change the current situation where users buy but do not use? The outcome remains uncertain. However, as the first-generation product in the narrative of Solana phones, Saga has successfully established a marketing model, yet it also exposes a core issue: is the core competitiveness of Web3 phones based on product attributes or financial attributes? If it is merely an airdrop ticket, is the heavy operational cost that needs to be borne by the phone product truly necessary? If it wants to remain competitive without relying on airdrop expectations, what should be the core selling point of Web3 phones in such a mature mobile market?

Today, the market situation for the second-generation Seeker is much better than that of Saga, but until these key issues are resolved, the fate of Saga still seems likely to repeat itself.