400 people – that’s the result the first Solana Spaces store recorded on its opening day. With the new locations in both the United States and around the world, the number of users is expected to grow significantly.
Grand opening
On Thursday, July 28, thanks to a grant provided by the Solana Fund, the first Solana Spaces store opened in New York’s Hudson Yards shopping center. The venture’s CEO, Vibhu Norby, in a Twitter AMA organized on this account, noted that the store is designed to teach new users how to use decentralized applications (DApps). He also outlined the numbers this would bring to the ecosystem itself:
“I don’t think people realize it, but through the stores we’re going to introduce 50,000 to 100,000 people to Solana every month – and that’s just this year.”
Norby also pointed out that 400 people visited the store on opening day. Other outlets in the United States are in turn under construction.
Characteristics of Solana Spaces
Solana Spaces is a store where one can purchase a limited series of goods based on Solana. Nevertheless, its main purpose is quite different. It is primarily a retail tutorial hub, where new users can receive completely free tutorial sessions on how to set up a cryptocurrency wallet, as well as how to connect to various DApps. Each tutorial is based on projects running on Solana’s blockchain. Currently, the hosts of the tutorials on the store are Stepn, Orca, Solana Pay, Metaplex and Magic Eden. For completing the tutorials, customers receive NFTs.
“This is not a store designed as a place where you buy things. It’s a store designed as an educational experience. We sell merch, Solana socks and hoodies and other cool stuff, but that’s not the main point of it,” Norby explains.
Solana Spaces was designed on a retail-as-a-service model. These types of units are primarily showrooms. They are mainly created for products that customers can later purchase online.
Not a random target
As Norby argues, the people who are most likely to benefit from the store’s offerings are those who have little to no exposure to blockchain. According to him, more than half of the customers who visited the store on launch day had little exposure to Bitcoin and Ether, and some didn’t even know what these coins exactly were. This type of customer is what most satisfies Solana representatives, who plan to open stores, in all countries around the world. Norby noted that a virtual outpost is also under construction. Its details have not yet been disclosed.
