Last year’s launch of the Solana Saga smartphone was a big bet by Solana Labs that didn’t initially appear to pay off. But a year-end surge in demand around the then-discounted phone, thanks in part to the surging value of token airdrops tied to it, cleared out the remaining stock and prompted questions about what’s next.

Enter “Chapter 2.” Revealed in January, just weeks after the airdrop craze that revitalized the Saga’s fortunes, the next Solana phone is set to launch in mid-2025 as the Solana Seeker after already attracting 140,000 pre-orders.

Solana Mobile, the Labs division behind the hardware, revealed the official branding and a first look at the next Android handset onstage at Token 2049 in Singapore Friday.

And it’s different. The previously announced $450 pre-order cost—less than half that of the Saga—might have already suggested that, but Solana Mobile General Manager Emmett Hollyer told Decrypt that we shouldn’t judge the Seeker by its much lower price point.

“We’ve priced it very aggressively because we want it to be accessible for growth,” he said, “not necessarily because we see this in any way of a step down.

Full hardware specifications haven’t been released yet, but Hollyer said that the Solana Seeker will have a brighter “flagship display” and a longer-lasting battery than the Saga, plus “better cameras”—including a new third sensor packed onto the back.

And in terms of performance, he suggested that it will be a “meaningful step up from Saga,” in part because it’s been so long since the Saga’s specs were set in early 2022. The Seeker hardware is also “lighter and smaller” than the Saga was, in part because they believe that many users plan to use it as a secondary device rather than replacing their primary phone.

That’s a shift in form as well as a pivot in messaging, which Hollyer said was based in part on feedback to Saga and emerging use cases, such running node software and mining tokens for decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePINs). The Seeker name, he explained, was inspired by the idea of users trying to “find new opportunities,” whether that’s rewards, experiences, or connection.

“People are constantly seeking those things out,” he said, “and so it just came to us very, very quickly.”

He admitted that messaging around the Saga may have been confusing in terms of its crypto focus. But with 140,000 people already plunking down deposits for the Seeker, they’re confident that there’s a growing group of prospective users—and that this phone will be focused on new and entrenched crypto users, rather than the general public.

“I don’t expect this to be a device that we’re just pitching to the masses, like, ‘Hey, use an Android phone and maybe try some of the crypto features,’” Hollyer said. “I’d love to be there, but I think we need to really, really get this right, and really learn from our users before we can start to pull in the masses.”

Solana Phone 2.0

Amid all the changes, however, some elements of the Seeker are very much like the Saga. The crypto integration is again driven by the Seed Vault, a custom custody solution built within a secure environment on the phone. It’s called out visually in the phone’s design this time, as seen in the product shots, in a glossy cutout wrapped around the right side of the frame.

In addition to the Seed Vault itself, Solana Mobile has designed a custom software wallet for the Seeker in collaboration with Solflare, promising what Hollyer described as a “better user experience” compared to the wallets currently available on the Saga.

They’ve also seen substantially more interest from Solana developers and builders in launching mobile decentralized apps (dapps) alongside the Seeker. Just 20,000 units of the Saga were produced, but with Seeker pre-orders already hitting a 7x multiple of that, he said that developers have more incentive to devote time and resources to mobile.

“We have been frankly inundated by ecosystem outreach,” he said.

Lastly, like the Saga, each Seeker phone will ship with a Genesis NFT—a soulbound token forever tied to the owner’s wallet. The Saga pioneered this model, and it quickly proved to be a “rewards magnet” for owners, as Hollyer framed it, thanks to the BONK meme coin airdrop surging in value late last year and other projects rewarding owners as well.

All of those incentives were community-driven, he said, and there’s been a massive wave of interest from Solana builders in tapping into the Seeker audience too. While there will no doubt be rewards, he also expects projects to offer exclusive access and experiences to owners.

“Of course, it will be a rewards magnet,” said Hollyer, “but it also is going to open some one-of-a-kind experience doors that I think will be new to Seeker versus Saga.”

Edited by Guillermo Jimenez

Last week, the government of Brazil banned X, formerly Twitter, cutting off millions of users from the Elon Musk-owned social network. It is one of the more high-profile examples of restrictions placed on platforms, and disputes around the world span a multitude of reasons: free speech (at least in the U.S.), political dissent, copyright, and illegal activity.

While alternate social media platforms like Bluesky saw a surge in new users from Brazil after the ban, some still insistent on using X have turned to virtual private networks (VPNs)—though doing so is also forbidden by the Brazilian government, and violations could come with a hefty daily fine.

Other sophisticated tools for obfuscating your location include the Tor Browser.

Not all VPNs are created equal. Decrypt spoke to the executive director of Unredacted Inc., a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that provides free and open services that help people evade censorship and protect their right to privacy.

What is a VPN?

IP addresses—numbers assigned to every network on the internet—are like a digital fingerprint. They reveal a considerable amount of information, including physical location, what internet provider you use, and so on. They are typically the way access is “geofenced” or restricted to or from specific regions or jurisdictions.

VPNs obscure this information as well as encrypt connections to prevent snooping by third parties.

“For example, if you are in Brazil and X is blocked, you can use a VPN to tunnel packets destined for X inside of a VPN tunnel to another country,” Zach, the executive director of Unredacted Inc., told Decrypt. (He asked that his last name not be used.) “An ISP or government couldn’t inspect what’s inside that tunneled traffic without the encryption keys from your VPN provider or device.”

The problem, Zach said, is that many VPNs don’t try to disguise the fact that they are VPNs.

“Common VPN protocols such as OpenVPN or WireGuard can easily be fingerprinted based on common port numbers or via DPI (deep packet inspection) by a government or ISP,” Zach said. “The use of typical VPN protocols is no secret to your ISP and government, and in some situations, it could endanger the user.”

As Zach explained, it’s also common for VPN providers to get pressured by government entities to share user data in order to investigate criminals and terrorist groups who may be attempting to hide their activities using a VPN.

“People can use VPNs for malicious purposes, as is true with any tool,” Zach said. “Governments will often send subpoenas trying to discover the true origin of VPN traffic and request subscriber details for a specific timestamp where an offense occurred.”

Instead of using a “raw VPN,” Unredacted points people to “obfuscated protocols.”

Zach noted that protocols like Shadowsocks—which is used by Outline VPN—and Tor transports like webtunnel, snowflake, meek, and obfs4 are harder to fingerprint than traditional VPNs, making them safer alternatives.

VPNs are not a silver bullet

Zach cautioned that all traffic can be fingerprinted if it shares observable patterns, however. More advanced government censorship operations often try to block VPN protocols, but doing so can cause collateral damage, like disrupting legitimate websites and communication platforms.

“These requests are generally made with good intentions,” he acknowledged. “What’s worrying is broad requests for more data than is truly necessary.”

The less data collected by a VPN provider, the better. Zach recommended that when choosing a VPN, one look for verifiable no-logging claims and review the provider’s security policy and privacy stance. Check to see if they are open-source and have undergone third-party audits, he added.

“Many VPN providers use affiliate marketing and social media to promote their service, but it’s important to research their claims and look for how they’ve handled past requests for data,” he said. “In a technical sense, it’s possible for any provider to turn on logging at any time without your knowledge.”

Private options

Popular VPNs include NordVPN, ProtonVPN, SurfShark, and ExpressVPN. There are also decentralized VPN (DPN) options from companies like Mysterium Network, Orchid, Deeper Network, and Tachyon.

Beyond those basics?

“There are many great options—for less technical people, Tor Browser and Tor’s Orbot (which acts like a traditional VPN) are very easy to use and understand,” Zach said. “Outline VPN is another fairly easy option to understand, with easy-to-use cross-platform apps.

“Our service, FreeSocks, helps people in heavily censored countries connect to the Outline servers for free that we operate,” he added.

Zach explained that both Tor and Outline help circumvent censorship in many countries worldwide.

“It’s important to point out that using Tor Browser or Orbot is inherently one of the safest methods to circumvent censorship and protect a user’s privacy because of the fact it hops your connection through three randomized nodes when accessing the regular Internet through it,” he said. “This makes correlation attacks very difficult.”

When forgetting their online banking credentials, individuals only need to visit their local bank branches with the necessary documents to identify themselves and recover access to their accounts. The same goes for traditional brokerages; they can reset their password online or contact support for assistance in the recovery process.

But while recovery is easy for custodial services like online banking and brokerages, things can get rather complex in crypto. On the one hand, self-custody significantly reduces counterparty risks and prevents a loss of funds in cases like the infamous Mt.Gox hack and the FTX bankruptcy. On the flip side, it also comes with more responsibilities for investors.

If crypto investors’ private keys or seed phrases go missing, there is no customer support team that can help them recover their self-custodial wallets. At this point, the funds are lost forever. In fact, a Chainalysis report estimates the loss of 3.7 million Bitcoin (BTC), worth over $220 billion at the price of $60,000, which accounts for 18.74% of the current circulating supply. At the same time, the personal research of Coinbase Director Conor Grogan reveals that more than 912,000 Ethereum (ETH) is lost forever (worth $2.41 billion). While it represents only 0.75% of the total circulating Ether supply, lost keys account for 27.5% of the cases.

The most common scenarios of losing access to crypto wallets

In which cases do veteran crypto users, web3 builders, and business owners lose access to their cryptocurrencies? Let’s look at some example scenarios to better understand the events that could lead to lost keys.

In Scenario One, a crypto user stores the private key on his desktop and backs up his seed phrase on the same device. After upgrading to a new device, he wipes his old computer’s hard drive clean, forgetting he stored his keys and seed phrases there. Consequently, his crypto holdings are gone forever.

Scenario Two presents another nightmarish case of human error. This time, an investor backs up his recovery phrase offline, printing it on a sheet of paper and storing it in his home along with other documents. However, after moving to a new apartment, the sheet with the seed phrase goes missing, and the investor fails to recover his wallet.

In Scenario Three, the founder of a crypto startup trusts the organization’s chief operating officer to manage the company’s finances. In addition to the business’ bank and exchange accounts, the COO controls all the private keys belonging to the project’s digital asset wallets. After a heated dispute with the founder and other team members, the chief operating officer resigns, refusing to provide access to the startup’s crypto wallets.

While the organization can regain control over its custodial accounts, it can’t interact with its digital asset holdings because the COO left with the private keys. In this case, a criminal investigation is the only reasonable course of action the startup can take to recover its assets. However, the case can take multiple years to conclude, and success is not guaranteed.

The above are only a few examples of how experienced crypto users can lose access to their digital asset wallets. Other cases of lost crypto may involve data corruption, hardware failures, malware, hacks, counterparty risks, mortality, and fraud.

Prevent locking users out of their crypto wallets

If crypto investors have neither access to their private keys nor their seed phrases, the only hope for them is wallet recovery solutions. However, the chances of success are tiny in most cases, and many fraudulent providers operate in this space, asking for upfront payments without providing any real service.

That is why a more efficient alternative to wallet recovery services is a decentralized trust. When creating a decentralized trust, crypto investors designate a backup wallet in case something happens with their main wallets. Suppose they accidentally misplace their private keys and seed phrases, losing access to the digital assets stored in their main wallets.

In that case, after several months without activity, the decentralized trust’s recovery mechanism automatically transfers users’ assets from their main to their backup wallets. As investors have access to their backup wallets, they can now interact with their cryptocurrency wealth, which would otherwise be considered lost.

There’s also no need to worry about a loss of funds due to the owner’s mortality. A decentralized trust can be configured to pass on inheritance to heirs based on the terms and predetermined conditions set by granters.

The next step in the evolution of crypto wallets

With multisig technology, decentralized trusts require multiple private keys to sign transactions. This eliminates single points of failure (like the case with the crypto startup’s COO in Scenario Three), reduces the chances of human error, and safeguards funds against unauthorized access.

Thus, a decentralized trust is the perfect choice for decentralized autonomous organizations, distributed Web3 teams, non-profits, and other crypto organizations to collectively manage their assets efficiently. Business owners and DAO members can even configure signature rights in a flexible way to secure the project’s assets and prevent funds’ misappropriation.

Available at a fraction of the costs of their traditional counterparts, decentralized trusts provide an effective solution for recovering access to lost wallets. As the next step in the evolution of crypto wallets, they have the potential to become popular solutions for storing cryptocurrencies. When more investors replace their old wallets with decentralized trusts, fewer digital assets will be lost to human errors, fraud, hacks, counterparty risks, and single points of failure. Eventually, this will help create a more secure and resilient crypto industry.

Ruslan Tugushev

Ruslan Tugushev is a seasoned entrepreneur and investor with over a decade of experience in business management and web development. He is the founder and CEO of UBD Network, a professional multisig platform designed to enhance security and collaboration in the cryptocurrency space, as well as the DeTrust Wallet. Ruslan has a strong background in investment capital, having previously established a successful crowdfunding platform that helped blockchain startups secure funding. Furthermore, he was also the CEO of Tugush Capital Partners, a venture advisory firm that focused on assisting companies in achieving investment-ready status, with a special focus on the blockchain sectors.