Rabid BONK Memecoin Fans Help Solana Saga Phones Sell Out in U.S.

Each phone is allocated BONK, the Shiba Inu-themed memecoin on Solana that has surged more than 600% over the past two weeks. The BONK allocation is now worth more than the retail price of the mobile device.

After selling fewer than 2,500 units until just a few weeks ago, Solana’s Saga mobile phones have sold out in the U.S. in the last few days as crypto users vie to get the BONK allocation on each device, which is currently worth more than the cost of the phone itself.

As a result of some customers purchasing several phones, Solana Mobile has limited purchases of the Saga, which debuted for public sale in May 2023, to one per household. 

30 million BONK, the Shiba Inu-themed cryptocurrency that has climbed more than 600% in price over the past two weeks, per CoinGecko data, is allocated to each Solana Saga mobile phone. At current market prices, the BONK allocation is worth $860, more than the $599 cost of the hardware phone.

Out of the 20,000 Saga units made so far, a limited number of phones, dedicated for people in the EU, are left, according to Megan Enright, Solana Labs communications manager in an email to Unchained. Until recently, the phone’s future looked uncertain. Now that sales have climbed so high, Solana Labs may have reason to increase its focus on the phone.

Solana founder Anatoly Yakovenko told Unchained on Laura Shin’s podcast last week that, “We really needed to hit like, I think 25,000 to 50,000 units to feel like there is a core user base for developers to be compelled to ship applications.”

Solana co-founder Raj Gokal wrote on X Thursday that Saga sales had increased more than ten times in the past 48 hours and were on track to sell out before the new year. 

lol. just so everyone is aware, @solanamobile saga sales have >10x’d in the past 48 hours, and are now on track to sell out before the new year.https://t.co/SzKht4DTYL

— raj 🖤 (@rajgokal) December 14, 2023

High Trading Levels

The sell out of the Solana Saga mobile phone comes amid high levels of trading volume for BONK on both centralized and decentralized exchanges. 

On Orca Finance, Solana’s largest decentralized exchange by total value locked with over $130 million, according to DefiLllama’s analytics, BONK had nearly 120,000 transactions, the second most behind SOL, the native token for Solana’s blockchain. However, BONK ranks first in 24-hour trading volume with over $215.3 million on Orca.

Coinbase, one of the largest centralized exchanges and the most prominent one in the United States, listed the memecoin for the first time on Thursday.  Coinbase product manager, Rishi Prasad indicated on X that “BONK clocked in at ~$238M in Day1 volume with us. This puts it at #12 listing by Day1 volume… across 270+ listings since we launched the exchange ~2015.”

According to CoinGecko, Binance experienced more than $310 million in trading volume for BONK since it opened trading for the first time earlier today.

BONK, created at the end of 2022, is the third largest memecoin by market capitalization, trailing only DOGE and SHIB, two other cryptocurrencies that are also inspired by the Shiba Inu dog breeds. The three dog tokens have a combined market capitalization of nearly $20.8 billion at press time. 

Read more: Dogecoin, Oldest Meme-Fueled Crypto, Turns 10 Years Old (That’s About 56 in Dog Years)

“Solana’s ecosystem making a big comeback and with memes being a strong narrative over the last couple of weeks, naturally leads to memes on Solana being propelled into the spotlight,” Martin Lee, content and communications lead at blockchain analytics firm Nansen, told Unchained via Telegram. “BONK is by far the category leader in that regard and its listing on Coinbase just adds more fuel to the fire.”

Sage owns more than $1,000 worth of BONK, as well as a few NFTs, gold, silver, and more than $1,000 each worth of BTC, ETH, LINK, AAVE, stETH, PEOPLE, DOGE, PEPE, and MOG.