Solana Mobile Stack begins a new era of web3 with a mobile-first android platform

By Joy Dumasia

Solana Mobile, a subsidiary of Solana Labs, debuted Solana Mobile Stack, an open-source software toolkit for Android enabling native Android web3 apps on Solana with the Seed Vault secure custody protocol that facilitates instant signing of transactions while keeping private keys partitioned from wallets, apps and the Android operating system.

“Developers have been blocked for too long from creating truly decentralized mobile apps because the existing gatekeeper model just doesn’t work anymore,” said Anatoly Yakovenko, Co-Founder of Solana. “We live our lives on our mobile devices – except for web3 because there hasn’t been a mobile-centric approach to private key management. The Solana Mobile Stack shows a new path forward on Solana that is open source, secure, optimized for web3, and easy to use.”

The Solana Mobile Stack (SMS) provides a new set of libraries for wallets and apps, allowing developers to create rich mobile experiences on Solana, the world’s most performant blockchain, and is built to run alongside Android. The SDK provides libraries and programming interfaces for Android apps and secure key private storage, simplifying the developer experience to build and extend dApps functionality for Solana. 

Solana Mobile Stack was introduced at an event in New York which also included the introduction of Saga, a flagship Android mobile phone with unique functionality and features tightly integrated with Solana, and is available now for pre-order for delivery in early 2023.

“Developers can now bring the power of Solana to the computers in our pockets, not just our backpacks,” said Raj Gokal, Co-Founder of Solana. “Solana can revolutionize so much of what we do every day, but we need to open the possibilities for decentralized apps on our mobile devices in order for this potential to be realized.”

Initial features of the Solana Mobile Stack SDK include:

• Mobile Wallet Adapter: A protocol for connecting web apps and native Android apps to wallets on mobile devices. The open-source protocol is designed to support all mobile platforms, not just Android, and can work with wallet apps providing signing services to apps running remotely, such as other mobile devices, and on desktop or laptop computers.

• Seed Vault: A secure environment built into a mobile device that keeps private keys, seed phrases and secrets separated from the application layer yet still capable of interacting with apps running on the device or in a mobile browser. Seed Vault accesses the highest privileged security environment available on a device, from secure operating modes of the processor to dedicated Secure Elements, which enables a secure transaction signing experience through UI components built into Android.

• Solana Pay for Android: Solana Pay, a decentralized payments rail on Solana, is built into Solana Mobile Stack, providing wallet apps the ability to use the system features of Android devices to capture Solana Pay URLs via QR codes, NFC taps, messages, and web browser interactions to launch Solana Pay requests. In addition, instant virtual card issuance will allow users to make contactless-based mobile payments backed by their self-custodied funds via traditional payment rails at tens of millions of global merchants.