Solana Mobile begins shipping Seeker smartphone to over 150K pre‑order customers

Solana Mobile shipped out the first 150,000 Seeker smartphones today, bringing a decentralized mobile network to the public. Seeker pre-orders have been ongoing since April, and the first batch size was confirmed in May. The August 4 shipping date was also announced on May 21.

Solana Mobile’s General Manager, Emmett Hollyer, said the Seeker decentralized network will be incentivized to power an economy driven by the SKR native token. He claimed that the SKR token gives users control and influence over their preferred “mobile experience.” 

Solana Mobile disclosed that the Seeker comes with a Seed Vault Wallet, a Seeker ID, and the Solana dApp Store, which has over 100 offerings. The company boasts that its dApps are designed for “secure onchain engagement.”

Central to this promise is the Trusted Execution Environment Platform Infrastructure Network, TEEPIN. The three-layer architecture allows users and developers to interact in a trustless, secure mobile environment. 

Hollyer says Seeker seeks to create rewarding connections

The Solana Mobile General Manager said the Seeker means to create rewarding connections rather than anything else. According to Hollyer, the Seeker is about loyalty and ownership, all enshrined in a secure ecosystem that pays using the SKR.

He claimed that the SKR balances “developer incentives” and “user demand,” creating a “sustainable wheel of value creation.”

Hollyer explained that token holders and Seeker Guardians will govern the Seeker’s incentive model. He also mentioned that the rewarding system is independent of ratings on the Solana dApp Store. Guardians will control the Solana Mobile economy’s policies about which dApps will be supported in the store and business model.

“Aligning incentives is essential to building a truly decentralized and self-sustaining mobile ecosystem,…It transforms the traditional mobile business model by giving stakeholders actual ownership in the platform.”

–Emmett Hollyer, General Manager at Solana Mobile

Hollyer also stressed that the Solana Mobile team needs to find developers who are “really passionate” about the ecosystem’s long-term success. He emphasized that finding early adopters with long-term commitment is equally important. However, he urged developers to provide “meaningful solutions” to common problems.

Yakovenko says TEEPIN is the ‘next evolution in mobile’ 

Anatoly Yakovenko, the co-founder and CEO of Solana Labs, said the Seeker’s TEEPIN architecture represented the “next evolution in mobile.” He pointed out that the framework did not have a centralized authority to grant trust. Trust is “verified through cryptography.”

Yakovenko claimed the Seeker leveraged on-chain governing access to unlock open innovation and platform ownership in a decentralized mobile network.

According to Solana Mobile, TEEPIN’s hardware layer used “cryptographic attestation” to validate the integrity of both hardware and software. The platform layer verified apps and users, enabling the distribution of apps without excessive fees or gatekeepers. 

Hollyer said the Seeker would transform the “traditional mobile business model” and give stakeholders ownership of the platform. He added that users would no longer be “in someone else’s walled garden”. Everyone in the ecosystem, from users to developers to device manufacturers, was expected to become an “active steward” of the community-owned network. 

Hollyer stressed that he wanted to see developers “take a step back” and come up with new ideas instead of recycling apps. He urged developers to always think of what the user would want solved, and how fast the problem could be solved.

The Solana Mobile General Manager said the Solana dApp Store will grow alongside the SKR economy. Both will have fewer constraints and more flexibility. Hollyer stated that users should not be “stuck on the receiving end” of a bad experience and useless developers offering “less innovative” business models.

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