Solana's SAMO Meme Coin Spikes 24% Amid Airdrop for Saga Phone Owners

Owners of the 20,000 total Solana Saga smartphones produced to date have been handed a wide array of token airdrops and incentives in recent weeks following a sales spike, and now another has arrived—with the token in question gaining in price over the past day.

Samoyedcoin (SAMO), a long-running Solana meme coin that peaked in price in 2021, previously announced plans for an airdrop for Saga owners, and confirmed on Monday that it was imminent. On Tuesday, the creators of the token opened up the claim for Saga owners, and the price of the token apparently spiked as a result.

SAMO jumped from a price of about $0.0135 to about $0.0175 early Tuesday, though it has shed some of the gains since, falling to a current price just below $0.016. It’s now up about 24% during the last 24 hours, per data from CoinGecko.

Saga owners can reportedly claim 1,250 SAMO, which comes out to almost $20 worth at the current price. At 2021’s peak price of $0.237, the drop would’ve been worth just shy of $300. Buyers of the Solana Saga have been able to claim airdrops from the likes of BONK and Access Protocol, helping to drive demand for the phone.

The Saga sold out in December amid the rise of meme coin BONK, which surged to the point where the airdrop was worth more than the price of the phone itself. At BONK’s peak price, the airdrop was worth about $1,025, though BONK has fallen sharply since—the 30 million tokens for Saga owners are now collectively worth just shy of $400.

Solana Labs, the startup that includes founders of the Solana blockchain network, has teased potential future plans for the Saga smartphone amid renewed interest over the crypto-friendly Android phone, which launched to the public in April 2022.

And the creators of Samoyedcoin could be responsible for the next wave of benefits for Saga owners. On Monday, the team announced the launch of Saga Tools, a platform to let other Solana developers deploy airdrops and other benefits that are exclusively for owners of the Solana phone.

For more on the types of airdrops and incentives available for Solana Saga owners, click here.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.