Two experimental brick-and-mortar stores in New York City and Miami centered around the Solana blockchain are closing less than a year after opening.
The stores, which were launched with funds from the Solana Foundation, were meant to spread the word about the blockchain and its cryptocurrency, SOL, whose value has fallen after FTX’s implosion and subsequent bankruptcy.
From August to the end of 2022, the independently owned and operated stores, dubbed “Solana Spaces,” helped facilitate some 16,000 tutorials of the network, according to the Solana Foundation, which works to build out the blockchain.
“While it’s unfortunate that Spaces is sunsetting its two experimental retail locations, the Solana Foundation looks forward to the community creating other unique onboarding experiences," a spokesperson for the foundation said in a statement to Fortune.
On a tour of the New York City store in Hudson Yards a day before it opened in July, Fortune found that people were excited by the concept.
This version of the store included a display of Degenerate Ape Academy NFTs on the wall and an interactive dashboard of the real-time transactions happening on the blockchain. It also had a station to help customers create a Phantom wallet, the most popular crypto wallet for Solana.
At the time, Vibhu Norby, the Solana Spaces CEO, told Fortune that the store is “an experiment that we think a lot of people will love.”
The store closings come as the larger crypto market continues to struggle, with even the most popular cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, not able to maintain an extended bull run.
The Solana blockchain and its token SOL have faced headwinds in particular because of close ties with Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced former CEO of FTX who's now facing criminal charges for fraud.
The network bills itself as a faster alternative to the dominant blockchain for decentralized applications, Ethereum, and received support from Sam Bankman-Fried, who called SOL the most “underrated token right now…” in an August interview with Fortune.
