• Solana Spaces will close its two stores in New York City and Miami at the end of February.
• The stores did not bring in as many users as initially hoped, prompting a shift to digital products such as DRiP, an NFT product.
• Founder Vibhu Norby said that while the stores onboarded 500-1000 people per week, DRiP onboarded the same quantity every day.
Solana Spaces Closing Stores
Solana Spaces announced on Feb 21st that it was closing its two SOL $24 Solana -5.71% themed retail stores located in New York City and Miami at the end of February due to „an inflection point“ with the stores.
Onboarding Not Meeting Expectations
The primary reason for closing these two stores was due to them not bringing in enough users as anticipated when they opened back in July/August of 2022. Founder Vibhu Norby said that while the stores were able to onboard between 500-1000 people per week, their new nonfungible token artwork airdrop platform (DRiP) was able to onboard that same quantity EVERY DAY.
Shift To Digital Products
Due to this, Solana Spaces decided it would be best to shift their investment focus away from their physical store locations and towards more digital products such as DRiP which is a free NFT product with an open source infrastructure that allows anyone with a web3 wallet to receive artworks associated with different projects on Solana’s blockchain directly into their wallet without having to buy or sell anything on secondary markets. This is part of Solana’s larger plan to onboard more people into the Solana and Web3 ecosystem.
End Of An Experiment
Norby said the decision had been made „a few weeks ago,“ and that this experiment was part of a broader plan by Solana Spaces but ultimately didn’t result in enough users being onboarded onto their chain for it to remain viable longterm.
Conclusion
Though short-lived, Solana Spaces‘ physical retail locations were an ambitious initiative which ultimately did not meet expectations prompting them to close down operations by the end of February 2021 and shift their focus onto digital products like DRiP instead.