#Write2Earn $SOL

The number of pre-orders for the second model of a mobile phone from the developers of the Solana blockchain and the cryptocurrency of the same name reached 100 thousand in a month. The company raised $45 million for the release of a new device, writes CoinDesk.

In January, Solana Mobile from blockchain developers Solana announced a second smartphone model with support for crypto applications. The demand for the new device, called Chapter 2, was so high that the company reached the goal of 100 thousand pre-orders of devices in a month. Solana expects to begin shipping the Chapter 2 mobile phone in the early months of 2025.

“There are minimal costs to launch a new device,” said Solana founder Anatoly Yakovenko. “With pre-orders at $450 per device, the second phone looks more cost effective than the first experimental $1K Solana phone.”

The new smartphone will have the same characteristics as its predecessor, called Saga: it runs on Android, has a built-in crypto wallet and secure key storage for it, as well as a crypto app store.

“It’s hard to beat Apple and Google in terms of the technical specifications that their flagship smartphones boast. Therefore, we focus on features related to cryptocurrencies. We are trying to create something that cannot be obtained on another device,” Yakovenko said.

Solana's first smartphone wasn't in significant demand when it was first released in mid-2023 for $1,000. The company quickly dropped the price to $599, but that didn't increase demand for the Saga. Popular YouTube reviewer Marques Brownlee called the Saga “the worst new phone of 2023” in one of his videos.

The developers were going to abandon Saga, but in December the situation changed dramatically. Traders discovered that the device's built-in wallet contained several Solana tokens, including Bonk (BONK), which surged nearly 100-fold between October and December 2023. Thanks to the high Bonk rate, Saga devices were sold out in a few days, and on the secondary market they were sold at prices ranging from $2 thousand to $5 thousand. The Solana blockchain has already been shut down 10 times. Why is this happening

Tether led a $25 million investment round for a mobile payment service.