#271: Playing the Waiting Game with Solana Saga's Chapter 2
📱 How is Solana Mobile keeping impatient degens engaged?
Solana Mobile announces Chapter 2
Last month I wrote a piece about the concept of airdrop magnets and highlighted Solana Mobile’s Saga Genesis phone as one of the prime examples of this concept.
On January 16th, Solana Mobile announced the next version of their phone, Chapter 2.
30,000 preorders were made within 30 hours of the announcement. I imagine much of that volume came from the Saga Genesis FOMO and all the airdrops that came with them.
Earlier this week, Solana Mobile shared that they reached over 100,000 preorders in under 30 days. Regardless of how many preorders were from degens hoping for a lucrative airdrop this is a big number, especially at $450 a pop. That’s $45 million in preorders and they’re just getting started 🥵
This commotion around Chapter 2 got to a point where I decided to order one of these myself last week. In the process of ordering, there was one detail that caught my eye:
2025?! That’s almost a year away. If we had to describe this space with one word impatient would be near the top of the list. There’s no way in hell the Solana community would be able to patiently wait for a whole year for these potentially generational wealth-building phones to arrive. On top of that, the Solana Mobile team intentionally put 2025 instead of ‘Q1 2025’ to reduce the risk of overpromising and underdelivering. Smart move.
Because of this timeline, I became more intrigued. What will Solana Mobile do to keep the preorder audience engaged and comfortable with waiting for what would otherwise be perceived as an eternity?
As I dug in, it’s clear that the team has thought about this factor deeply and those who preordered will start to have a taste of what’s to come sooner than they think.
The referral leaderboard
A common tactic across many web3 nowadays, Solana Mobile launched Chapter 2 with a leaderboard.
How does it work?
Users connect their Solana wallet and X account to create a referral link and receive preorder referral credit
Multiple snapshots of the leaderboard will be taken, with the following rank categories
1-50
51-500
501-1500
Top referrers will receive non-transferrable Element NFTs. The first snapshot provided an Emerald NFT for all top referrers to claim.
The second snapshot (ending Feb 21) provides a glimpse into how the Element NFTs will be rewarded
Top 1500 referrals post Snapshot 1 will receive a Tanzanite NFT
Top 1500 referrals all time will receive a Diamond NFT
Unlike your average new crypto platform or web3 tool, these successful referrals are higher quality since these preorders are tied to an actual $450 purchase instead of a signup or a low-value transaction.
Preorder phases
There are currently 3 preorder windows: Founder, Early Adopter, and Supporter.
The Founder window conclusion was triggered once the milestone of 100k preorders was achieved.
The Early Adopter window price increased by $50 to $500, with details TBD on when this closes. This phased window process naturally encourages those on the fence to purchase the Chapter 2 sooner rather than later.
Preorder Tokens
Not on the referral leaderboard? No need to worry because every user/wallet that preorders will receive a Chapter 2 Preorder Token. The first snapshot for preorder and leaderboard wallets was first taken on Feb 8th, and these tokens were airdropped to 92,217 wallets the following day, whew!
I just missed the first snapshot, so I’ll have to wait for my token next week.
Wait…Preorder token? Didn’t the Saga Genesis have a token too?
Ah, you see where I’m going 😉
Snapshot Sponsors
So we now have ‘top’ preorder-ers defined by a referral leaderboard, a rewards system for those wallets, and a Preorder Token for all preorders. What are we missing?
Sponsors of course. Oh wait, Solana Mobile has that covered too!
Each snapshot included a list of sponsors, which consists of some of the top names in Solana ecosystem.
I expect the list of sponsors to grow as the snapshots continue.
What happens next?
So we now have a:
Stereotypically impatient audience that is preordering a phone that they’ll have to wait for a year to receive
NFTs to signify preorders and top referrers
Lineup of the top companies and brands in the Solana ecosystem sponsoring these snapshots
As the initial wave of preorders plateau, I suspect some of these sponsors will start to ‘activate’ these snapshot sponsorships, like sleeper cell agents receiving a message from HQ.
The audience is too large, the timeline is too long, and the value of these preorders is too high for nothing to happen. Add fuel on the fire of a bear market that is pivoting into a bull market and we get all the ingredients ripe for a lot more than 100k preorders.
On the other hand, there’s a large opportunity for other projects operating in the Solana ecosystem to vampire attack the attention of these wallets with Preorder Tokens in a similar fashion as the Saga Genesis tokens. I’m not sure why this hasn’t happened yet TBH (maybe the token is undiscoverable? that doesn’t make sense. no one else has thought of this? I doubt it, I’m pretty stupid)
If these perks/airdrops/benefits happen, the whole preorder community goes from:
To this:
Is Solana Mobile losing the plot?
The skeptical POV of all this is looking at Solana Mobile as a perverse way to onboard new users through airdrops and tokens.
On the other hand, there is the alternative POV with the admirable vision Solana Mobile and Anatoly (Co-Founder of Solana) are trying to turn into a reality:
The ‘Duopoly’ is Apple and Google, who have dominated the mobile market with their 30% cut on in-app purchases. Solana Mobile wants to change that, and that requires a different incentive system when you’re up against multi-trillion dollar companies that have a decade headstart on you.
If that’s a moonshot that Solana is going after, I’m down to participate, and potentially even get rewarded for that. At minimum, I want to try out the phone when it eventuallyyyyy arrives lol.
Additionally, there are related efforts such as the Sol Mobile Hub, which aims to be the go-to place for airdrops, perks, and insights for all things Solana Mobile. It doesn’t seem to be officially associated with Solana Mobile, but could be a helpful participant in the ecosystem (maybe the T-Mobile Rewards of Solana Mobile? IYKYK).
On top of that, earlier this morning Aptos (alt Layer 1 chain) announced a partnership with Jambo, releasing the $99 JamboPhone that comes with pre-loaded apps directly integrated with the Aptos ecosystem.
The price point suggests the phone is for those in emerging markets and preorders have already sold out probably due to more speculators trying to repeat the Saga Genesis airdrop opportunity 😂
And for everyone else?
I don’t think anyone here is developing a phone, but a more common scenario is with preorders.
A good example of this with slightly lower stakes than building a phone is with RTFKT and their merch, particularly the sneakers. The pre-forge phase was in August 2022, forge phase was May 2023, and the sneakers were delivered October 2023.
To me the sneakers were worth the wait, but is there a way to keep the community engaged during that 14-month wait?
The same goes with the RTFKT x Nike Dunk Genesis where preorders happened October-November 2023 with the shoes estimated to be delivered ~July/August 2024.
There may be opportunities to drip content, teasers, and potentially other perks through the tokenized preorders themselves. RTFKT has arguably one of the most talented creator communities, and they could partner with the creators to create some unique perks or art airdrops for the community while they patiently wait for their precious sneakers to arrive.
Another example of this is with event tickets. The ticketing industry is already bought into the concept of NFT ticket stubs and token-gated sales. However, those are respectively post-event and at the point of sale.
What about purchasing tickets to a concert months (or years if it’s Taylor Swift) in advance? How can you keep the fans engaged while they wait for their favorite artists to come to town? Maybe this opportunity doesn’t need to be addressed because this ‘waiting for the big day’ mindset is an established behavior. It’s a blue ocean opportunity nonetheless.
Many of us have been trained to be patient thanks to projects like RTFKT, Solana Mobile’s Chapter 2, and this bear market that (hopefully!) is coming to an end.
This time though, I think the wait for Chapter 2 will look a lot different.
See you next week!
Super in-depth and very interesting read, thanks T! I keep waiting for a more "boring" article but you just never miss.