Solana Saga vs. Apple: A Luxury Device Priced Over $5,000

• The Solana Saga smartphone debuted at $1,000, but as demand has soared and the supply remained low, some are retailing on eBay for over $5,000.
• At $5,000, Saga is the most expensive phone in the market and close to five times the price of Apple’s iPhone Pro Max 15, the company’s most expensive smartphone.

When Solana’s Saga blockchain native smartphone dropped, it failed to meet expectations. Its sales were pitiful, and even the project’s founder, Anatoly Yakovenko, admitted that the smartphone’s progress had been below par. But in testament to what a bull market can do, the Saga is retailing on eBay now at $5,000, close to five times higher than Apple’s most expensive device.

Saga dropped in April this year, with Solana starting to fulfill pre-orders in May. The Android phone received praise for its simple yet powerful build, and its wallet function held to industry standards. However, it didn’t set the tech world ablaze, nor was it seen as a genuine competitor to established brands like Apple and Samsung.

As CNF reported recently, the smartphone’s sales have been so poor that founder Yakovenko has been working on a redesign to ramp up interest. In an interview with Unchained Podcast’s Laura Shin earlier this month, he revealed that Solana Labs had only sold 2,200 Saga phones.

But that was three weeks ago, and in crypto, that’s a mighty long time. This week, the company revealed that the smartphone had sold out.

Saga launched at $1,000, the benchmark price for flagship smartphones. However, one outlet reports that this has shot up 500% as demand skyrockets. With the official Solana store now out of stock, users are scrambling for the phone on platforms like eBay, where sellers are quoting prices as high as $5,000.

For context, Apple’s iPhone 15 Pro Max, which comes with advanced features like StandBy Mode and NameDrop, only costs $1,199. Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 5, which unfolds to unveil a 7.6-inch screen, only costs $1,900.

The demand for the blockchain smartphone even shocked the company behind it. A representative for the company told one outlet:

We’re extremely excited by this surge in momentum and interest in Saga. Right now, our priority is to continue listening to our community so that we can understand what this demand looks like, both now and in the future, and assess what comes next.

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Why the Solana Saga is in Such High Demand

So, after the poor start to life in its first seven months, why has the Saga started flying off the shelves suddenly? The answer lies in Bonk, the meme coin that has set the market ablaze this year with incredible gains that saw it overtake PEPE to become the third-largest in its field after SHIB and DOGE.

Anyone who buys a new Saga phone is eligible to receive 30 million Bonk tokens, which has been the primary driver in the demand for the smartphone. Initially, nobody cared about the airdrop as the tokens weren’t worth much. But then, when Bonk surged, an arbitrage opportunity sprang up as the airdropped tokens were worth much more than the smartphone’s price.

Bonk’s price has since dipped, and the 30 million tokens are currently worth $618. Purchasing the phone at $5,000 is a big risk unless an investor firmly believes the meme coin will gain by at least 810%.