Solana's Second Phone Crosses 100,000 Presales, Securing $45M for Development
It took nearly a year for Solana to sell out 20,000 units of its first crypto phone. But the second phone has hit 100,000 pre-orders in just over a month.
Solana Mobile's "chapter 2" smartphone crossed a key threshold on Monday; it had previously set the 100,000 preorder milestone as a precondition to developing a second device. Now with a $45 million warchest, the company plans to proceed and hopefully deliver units to customers in early 2025.
"There's a minimum cost to get a new line going," Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko told CoinDesk in an interview. With at least 100,000 customers for chapter 2 having already paid $450, the economics for selling an affordable second device are more viable than the "brutal" numbers that backed Solana's experimental first phone, which originally retailed for $1,000, he said.
The milestone solidifies a future for Solana Mobile, so far the only crypto-enabled phonemaker to find a paying customer base that comes back for more. Its fortunes were in doubt as recently as last year. But then crypto traders realized each phone came with free tokens, sparking a sellout run on the Saga.
