Airdrop of Meme Tokens Offsets Cost of Solana’s Web3 Smartphone Preorder

Customers who preordered the Saga Chapter 2 Web3 smartphone from Solana Mobile found their purchase costs offset by the distribution of two meme tokens.

In April, cat-themed projects — Cat in a dog’s world (MEW) and Maneki (MANEKI) — distributed an airdrop to owners of the yet-to-be-released device.

On April 1, the MEW team sent 37,600 tokens to each Web3 smartphone pre-order customer. According to CoinGecko, at a post-distribution peak price of $0.0089, the tokens were valued at approximately $334.

On April 24, Saga Chapter 2 owners received 5,199 MANEKI tokens. At peak values of $0.026, this amounted to about $135.

In total, the two meme tokens potentially provided pre-order customers, who paid $450 for the smartphone, with around $470. However, at the time of writing, the token values had declined and no longer covered the device’s cost.

When ordering the Saga Chapter 2, buyers linked their Solana wallet address, allowing them to receive tokens before the phone’s arrival. Owners of the first model were also sent a similar amount of tokens.

The original Saga, launched in May 2023, was initially priced at $999, with its price reduced to $599 in August.

In early December, Solana founder Anatoly Yakovenko admitted to low smartphone sales. He stated that since the product’s launch, 2,200 units had been sold.

However, due to the buzz around the BONK meme token airdrop, speculators began buying the device en masse for resale. Some listed it on eBay for $5,000.

Back in January 2024, Solana announced the second version of the Web3 smartphone. By mid-February, preorders for the new model reached 100,000 units.