As the New York City and Miami locations of Solana Spaces’ Solana (SOL)-themed, community-oriented retail shops did not board as many members as expected, the company has decided to shut them down at the end of this month. It’s another another ambitious project that has been put on ice because of the ongoing crypto winter.
On February 21, Solana Spaces announced the decision through Twitter, along with a message from company founder Vibhu Norby that explained the reasons for the closure of the stores.
Solana Spaces opened its first retail location in New York City’s Hudson Yards last summer. The goal of the shop was to provide a welcoming environment for newbies to the Web3 platform while also allowing diehard Solana fans to stock up on their favorite products. In August of 2022, a second shop opened in Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood, which is well recognized as a center for the arts and culture.
Solana Spaces’ founder Norby said the business has reached a “inflection point” with the retail outlets, leading a reallocation of resources to develop “DRiP,” an NFT artwork airdrop platform. Sign-ups for DRiP have surpassed 50,000 as of this week, and another 175,000 are on a queue to join, which Norby says has astonished the team.
While our stores onboard between 500 and 1,000 people per week, DRiP onboard that same quantity EVERY DAY.
Vibhu Norby, Founder – Solana Spaces
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, so a team from spaces and myself are taking that and running with it.
Vibhu Norby, Founder – Solana Spaces
The stores in Wynwood, Miami, and Hudson Yards, New York, were chosen for closure a few weeks ago, and they will “sunset” at the end of February. The Solana-themed shops provided users with a variety of experiences, including in-person wallet on-boarding training, rewards, product buying, and event attendance. The decision to shut down is the latest in a string of layoffs and office closures suffered by major players in the cryptocurrency business as a result of the ongoing crypto winter.
