Solana Mobile, a subsidiary of Solana Labs, announced a significant 40% price cut for its Saga smartphone, bringing the price down from the initial $1,000 to a more affordable $599. The move comes just four months after the launch of the phone and sparked a wave of backlash from the crypto community.
The official rack from the company suggests the price reduction is a strategic move to promote wider adoption of mobile web3 and improve the user experience for the Solana mobile community. On-chain data, however, paint a slightly different picture.
According to data collected by Flipside Crypto, sales of the Solana Saga have plummeted since peaking in April and May. This is evidenced by the number of Saga Genesis NFT mints, which are generated when a user sets up their Solana Saga smartphone and accesses the Solana app store. The chart below shows a clear downward trend in sales. Since June, sales volume has been extremely flat after a successful May 2023.
The price cut has led to mixed reactions on Twitter/X. While some early adopters expressed frustration with purchasing the device at its original price, others defended the move and pointed out the benefits of being an early bird. Notably, early owners had the exclusive opportunity to mint Claynosaurz NFTs, which currently have a rock bottom price of around 33 SOL on Magic Eden, which equates to over $800.
Solana (SOL) Price Analysis
On the other hand, the Solana (SOL) token is in bullish territory. At the time of writing, SOL was trading at USD 24.38. A look at the daily chart shows that SOL was able to confirm the breakout of its downtrend channel on Monday after the price found support on both the channel’s trendline and the 200-day exponential moving average (EMA).
As a result of this bullish confirmation, SOL broke above the 50% Fibonacci retracement level at $23.94. For now, it looks like SOL can defend the level and make another run to the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level at $27.42.
Remarkably, on July 14, SOL reached its year-to-date high of $32.36 and bounced back from the 78.6% Fibonacci retracement level. Then SOL dipped below the 61.8% Fibonacci level and failed to hold a daily close above it.
Given this context, the $27.42 price is currently emerging as the most crucial resistance. Should a breakout occur, a clear path to the year’s high would have been established. In this case, a bullish breakout seems imminent. However, strong profit taking can be expected around $32.36. However, if the yearly high falls, the bulls could target the 1,618 Fibonacci extension level at $56.86.
Featured image of Disruption Banking chart from TradingView.com