New York City and Miami Solana Spaces stores Are Closing
With Web3 onboarding, Solana Spaces abandons brick-and-mortar gateways.
On Tuesday, Solana Spaces—Solana-themed retail storefronts—closed its company-owned and managed outlets, another ambitious project stalled by the crypto cold.
“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 more than 100k sign-ups,” according to the Solana Spaces Twitter account.
Solana Spaces opened its Hudson Yards location last summer. The store sold Solana-branded merchandise to Web3 newcomers.
In August, a Wynwood store debuted in Miami, a creative and cultural hub.
Bored & Hungry, a Los Angeles-based fast food restaurant inspired by Bored Ape Yacht Club, joined the Solana stores in IRL projects.
“Realistically, we were a startup that was chasing a path,” Solana Spaces founder Vibhu Norby told Decrypt in an interview. “Obviously, like many founders had to make difficult decisions sometimes, and this was one of them.”
Norby tweeted that the team improved product and finance onboarding.
“I think the reality is that we could have kept them running, but it didn’t make as much sense as it did in the past to do that, and so we didn’t,” Norby said.
Norby says its focus is now on the DRiP, an online platform that experienced the same traffic as the physical locations.
Collectors can get free Solana NFTs airdropped weekly on DRiP.
“While our stores onboard between 500 and 1,000 people per week, DRiP onboards that same quantity every day,” he said.
As of this week, DRiP had 50,000 sign-ups and 175,000 on a waitlist, surprising Norby.
“As a founder who has a background working in software products and things like MySpace and other social things back in the day—I really thought it [would make] little sense not to pursue that aggressively,” Norby said. “So a team from spaces and myself are taking that and running with it.”
Norby said Solana Spaces will continue when the New York and Miami stores close.
“We open-sourced our stores in November,” he stated. “We were excited to franchise the Spaces globally.”
Norby says an Indian franchise will open soon. Solana Spaces will remain in smaller Miami apparel businesses.
Norby says the New York and Miami Solana Spaces stores will offer prizes and discounts on merchandise before closing on February 28th.
“I’ve instructed our retail team to be ultra generous,” Norby wrote on Twitter. “So come by and grab some free high-quality Solana gear, while supplies last and with some limitations,” he said, asking the Solana community who come by the stores to share pictures on Twitter.
“So we can all together enjoy the final week of Solana Spaces,” he remarked.
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