Solana Spaces, a startup that aimed to bring people to the Web3 space, announced on February 21st via Twitter that it would be closing down its two community-oriented retail stores located in New York City and Miami at the end of the month.
The physical stores did not onboard as many users as initially anticipated, prompting the startup to pivot its efforts into digital products such as DRiP, its free NFT product with over 100,000 sign-ups.
Solana Spaces’ Venture Into Physical Retail Comes To An End
Solana Spaces was founded just over a year ago, with startup costs funded by Solana Foundation. The company also received support from Phantom, Orca, and many other ecosystem teams over the past year.
The company’s mission was to experiment with new and disruptive models to bring people to Web3 and serve the community on behalf of the Foundation. In a note to its community, founder Vibhu Norby expressed gratitude to everyone who supported the startup. He specifically thanked the team for executing at the highest levels.
He also highlighted the team’s numerous achievements, including hosting almost 75,000 people in its stores, helping thousands walk away with Phantom wallets and Solana merch, and collaborating with 30 different brands.
Despite the success of the physical stores in bringing in new users, Norby made the difficult decision to sunset the stores and focused the company’s efforts on digital products such as DRiP, which onboards the same number of people in a day that the physical stores did in a week.
According to Norby, the decision to pivot to DRiP was due to an inflection point with the company’s stores and digital products. He noted that Solana Spaces would continue to support the mission of Solana IRL all over the world by open-sourcing both the software that powers Spaces and the brand.
He also said that the company is in the process of identifying a place for people to pick up Solana merch and participate in other IRL activities in NYC and Miami.
The news has been met with a mix of sadness and gratitude from the community. Some have expressed their disappointment at the closure of the Miami store, which was a hub for Crypto-related events in the city. Others have expressed their support for the Solana Spaces team and their contribution to the ecosystem.
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