Are Solana phones the reason for SOL’s 18% surge?

• Preorders have hit 1o0K, making Solana proceed with the production.
• SOL was the best-performing large-cap crypto in the last week.

Solana [SOL] Mobile’s upcoming “Chapter 2” Web3 phone was making waves in the market, with users jostling to get their hands on the device.

A new “chapter” for Solana phones

According to on-chain analytics firm Flipside, around 53.4K units have been preordered as of the 13th of February, nearly a month after Solana announced the successor to the Solana Saga phones.

In fact, one user bought nearly 25 units, shelling out a total of $11,252 on the purchase.

Source: Flipside

Note that this data only accounted for the purchases made through Solana Pay, excluding sales made through Visa or other payment networks.

The countdown begins

Earlier, Solana Mobile announced that preorders for Chapter 2 had reached 100K, a target which ensures the production of the device. With this, the firm also ended its early preorder price of $450. The phones were expected to be shipped in the first half of 2025.

Chapter 2, like its predecessor Solana Saga, was designed to make crypto products and services more accessible to the public, Solana Mobile had previously said.

SOL was pumping but be mindful

It was highly likely that the hype around the upcoming product was applying upward pressure on native token of the ecosystem.

SOL was the best-performing large-cap crypto in the last week, accumulating gains of 18.38%, according to CoinMarketCap

Having said that, the market sentiment towards the fifth-largest cryptocurrency was still negative as of this writing, AMBCrypto noted using Santiment data.

Moreover, the coin wasn’t generating enough social buzz as seen from the subdued social volume indicator.

Source: Santiment

How much are 1,10,100 SOLs worth today?

The rise in spot prices caused a spike in derivatives traders’ investments. The Open Interest (OI) in SOL futures was sitting at an all-time high (ATH) of $1.7 billion at press time, as per AMBCrypto’s examination of Coinglass data.

Source: Coinglass

However, most of the new positions were betting on SOL’s price decline. The number of shorts vis à vis longs increased in the last four days, suggesting that a reversal was somewhere round the corner.

Source: Coinglass