In Business World Table of Contents
A Web3 winner
When cellphones first came to prominence in the late 1990s, the first serious mention of cryptocurrency was still a decade away.
Fast forward to the present day and not only have cellphones become one of the most important innovations in human history but vehicles for entire crypto ecosystems.
Web3 phones, as they are known, are specifically designed for crypto, non-fungible tokens and decentralised apps (dApps), among others.
While there are now various Web3 phones on the market, many would argue that in this brave new world of crypto-telecommunications blockchain platform Solana is king.
Solana may not have been first to market but it wasn’t far off when it launched the Saga, its first Web3 device, in 2023.
Though the Saga did not resonate with users, Solana was not deterred.
What was to come would define its standing in this space.
The SKR effect
In late 2025, Solana Mobile announced that it would launch a native token for its new Seeker smartphone ecosystem.
The SKR token forms the backbone of its entire mobile platform.
Analysts believe the addition of SKR will contribute significantly to the Solana price USD rate, since it builds on the platform’s reputation for fast transactions and low fees.
A deeper dive into SKR shows that token supply will be fixed at 10 billion.
Some 30% of these will be allocated for airdrops, 25% to growth projects and collaborations, and 10% to liquidity and launch expenses.
The remaining tokens will be distributed across a community treasury (10%), Solana Mobile (15%) and the main Solana platform (10%).
No hiding from Seeker
- There is massive demand for the Seeker phone itself.
- This is not entirely surprising considering there are now more than 120 million active addresses on the Solana platform.Months before launch 150 000 pre-orders had been received from around the world.
- Everything about the Seeker is geared towards these users, who can now transact in seconds.
- Security is guaranteed by a feature called the “Seed Vault”, where private crypto keys are protected by biometric access and encryption.
- The Seed Vault Wallet, meanwhile, enables users to approve and verify transactions.
- One of the major concerns Solana users had about the Saga when it first came out was that it overemphasised security at the expense of ease-of-use.
- With Saga, for example, a user had to follow a series of steps to approve a transaction.
- This process is now much simpler with the Seeker.
- All it takes for a transaction to be processed is a click on the screen and fingerprint verification.
Solana Mobile general manager Emmett Hollyer has said the Seed Vault Wallet does everything a regular crypto wallet does but is more “mobile-native” in that it is built directly into the device along with the dApps in the store.
Pace-setter
- Solana Mobile and indeed parent Solana know that the Web3 space is highly competitive.
- They also know that it doesn’t take long for rivals to catch up.
- However, in the Seeker, the SKR token and Seed Vault offerings they have thrown down the gauntlet in no uncertain terms.