Only seven months after the project became a reality, Solana Space shops in New York and Miami will close at the end of the week
Solana Space to close stores
On July 28, Solana Space, a shop showcasing the Solana ecosystem, opened in New York. Since then, a second physical outlet has also opened in Miami. However, after only seven months of operation, the Solana Space concept is now shutting down:
The following is a note from our founder, @vibhu
Dear @solanaspaces community,
We’ve made the difficult decision to sunset our stores in NYC and Miami by the end of February, and to pivot our Solana onboarding efforts into digital products like DRiP, our free NFT product with… https://t.co/kjNu9Ay4Gk
– DRiP (@drip_haus) February 21, 2023
While these shops offered products themed around the various protocols present on Solana, and sought to bring new people into Web3, the bear market probably has a role to play in the turn of events.
The Solana Foundation, the Phantom wallet, and the Orca protocol had funded the initiative. The two Solana Space shops will still close at the end of the week, and the sales team has been asked to “be extra generous” with the last visitors.
Significantly below expectations
At the opening of the first shop in Manhattan’s Hudson Yard Mall, Vibhu Norby, the CEO and founder of the concept, was particularly optimistic about his project. He claimed that he could “bring 50-100,000 people to Solana every month through these shops”, just by 2022.
However, the figures have fallen short of his predictions, as the shops will have attracted 75,000 visitors since last summer and helped set up “a few thousand” Phantom wallets.
According to Vibhu Norby, Solana Space has managed to get 500 to 1,000 people a week into the Solana ecosystem. He prefers to focus on his DRiP project, which would bring the same number of users to Solana, but on a daily basis. DRiP is a protocol that distributes free non-fungible tokens (NFT) every week :
As I’ve often told people, as great as the shops are, if we could find a more efficient way to get people to Solana, that’s where we would focus our efforts. And so to speak, I found that in DRiP. “
However, it is worth taking a step back from these figures, which may be overstated. Indeed, the Solana blockchain currently has about 300,000 active addresses per day according to Solscan, and this value has been steadily declining since last year.
