In a stunning flip this week, the Solana Saga phone—which was previously unable to find a buyer—is now selling for as much as $5,000 on the online marketplace Ebay, a significant increase from its earlier summer discount.
Following the phone's detractors' accusations of a "failure," demand for the Solana-based meme currency BONK surged, with its value increasing by more than 10,000% in only two months. $SOL
The BONK Airdrop Sets Solana Saga Phones Freefalling
Some arbitrage traders appeared to be seeking an airdrop of 30 million BONK tokens, which are issued to all phone owners, and this appears to have bolstered sales of Solana Saga phones last week. At its highest point last week, the airdrop was worth almost $700 on a phone that cost $599.
One innovative feature of the blockchain-enabled smartphone Saga is its capacity to securely store bitcoin on the device's internal components.
A ad on the internet marketplace eBay from December 16th stated that two phones, both in their original packaging and never opened, were sold for $5,000 or "best offer," while another phone went for $3,316 or "best offer."
Unhappy with sales and the phone's future, the $1,000 Saga emerged earlier this year. The inventor of Solana, Anatoly Yakovenko, has earlier admitted that Saga's future was uncertain because of its disappointing sales performance.
But now that the newest BONK panic has passed, the storyline has changed. The dog-themed BONK was accepted by blockchain users in early November, and its popularity skyrocketed, with prices increasing as much as 700% in 30 days and as much as 110% in a single day.
At the moment, SOL's market value is $32.31 billion. Indicator: TradingView.com
After initial concerns about the Saga phone's future were expressed due to its poor sales, that seemed to alleviate its status.
The 30-million BONK token airdrop that comes with every new Saga phone was observed last week by enthusiasts and dealers. Due to the unexpectedly high price of BONK, the Saga phones sold out on the official website before they ever arrived. This was because the airdrop was worth more than the phone itself.
Discord Breaks Out as Sales of Saga Skyrocket
Saga Discord server was down on Thursday due to new people claiming to have bought the phone and wanted to get the airdrop. According to the Discord server posts, the BONK airdrop is open to users who have downloaded the app via Saga's crypto-forward custom app store.
According to a post by Solana co-founder Raj Gokal on X made at noon on Thursday, sales of Saga had increased by more than tenfold in the past two days, and they are on track to sell out entirely before the new year.
Anatoly Yakovenko, Gokal's colleague, went to Twitter to announce the necessity of a price cut in light of the remarkable uptick in sales.
Phone customers might not be putting all their eggs in the $BONK pricing basket just yet, what with all the Solana-based initiatives announcing airdrops and other financial incentives for device users.