Ring ring ring ring Solanaphone

Welcome back to Chain Reaction.

Last week, we talked about the NFT community being down bad but still down to party. This week, we’re looking at the desperation of web3 startups for a post-Apple tech industry.

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crypto wants its own iPhone

There are few consumer companies with a better reputation among users than Apple, there are also few “web2” companies that are more despised by crypto startups than Apple.

We’ve talked a bit about Apple’s reputation in the crypto space over time. The App Store’s rules are pretty hostile to crypto and NFT startups, but it’s not the least understandable move for Apple which banks money on taking cuts of in-app transactions and justifies its monopoly by saying that they’re protecting users from scams and malware. Well, no one can argue that it’s simple to avoid scams in the crypto space these days, but life under Apple’s mobile empire is still frustrating for legit crypto apps that have to be content with being desktop-first in an overwhelmingly mobile world.

As a result, it’s not so shocking that the crypto world is showing interest in building a world without Apple. A task that doesn’t sound all that straightforward…

This week, Solana Labs, creators of the Solana blockchain which has had a dazzling rise and pretty dramatic fall in token price in recent months, has announced their own blockchain smartphone. If you’ve read TechCrunch over the years, this should be a bit eyebrow-raising. It’s nearly impossible to build a smartphone business as a startup, many have tried and few have achieved anything even closely resembling success.