Key Insights:
- The Solana Spaces store features an interactive art installation and Solana-themed merchandise.
- The shop also offers customers tutorials for the Phantom wallet.
- Solana reached a total sales volume of around $2.35 billion last month.
Solana, one of the world’s largest blockchains by market capitalisation, is opening a permanent physical store in Manhattan, New York which will act as a “cultural centre” for the project.
A standout element of the Solana Spaces store is that it will feature an interactive art installation, as well as offering users the chance to checkout using Solana Pay.
The World of Web3
The new store, which is located in the Hudson Yards neighbourhood, boasts a non-fungible token (NFT) gallery featuring the Degenerate Ape Academy collection. The Solana-based collection is comprised of 10,000 algorithmically-generated 3D apes.
At Solana Spaces, the interactive art installation displays real-time visualisations based on what is occurring on the Solana blockchain in terms of transactions and minted NFTs.
In addition, Solana Spaces accepts cryptocurrency as a payment method, with Solana Pay facilitating transactions for customers. Beyond this, the store also offers tutorials for the Phantom wallet and Magic Eden. Notably, Phantom is a popular non-custodial crypto wallet designed for Solana which has over one million users.
Solana’s Success
In May this year, the project made headlines when its NFT sales generated more money than Ethereum’s during a 24-hour period.
Indeed, Solana has become an alternative to the more costly Ethereum (ETH) blockchain to trade NFTs considering that the project claims to ensure transactions will always remain less than $0.01 for both developers and users. In contrast, the average transaction fee on Ethereum is $3.71 at the time of writing.
In addition, Solanart is a fully-fledged NFT marketplace based on the network that allows anyone to acquire or sell NFTs, with the overarching goal of helping to promote artists and creators.
Overall, the project has managed to reach a total sales volume of around $2.35 billion as of June, with average monthly NFT sales totalling $150 million this year.