Centralised Solana opens a retail store in NYC

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Centralised Solana opens a retail store in NYC.

Direct from the desk of Dane Williams.




Trying as hard as they can to be Apple, Solana has opened a retail store in NYC aimed at bringing crypto into the physical world.

The further along the road we travel, the entirely centralised Solana and its associated SOL crypto token just continues to deviate further away from what those of us pushing the monetary and speech freedoms that only truly decentralised, permissionless networks can provide.

Yes, you read the headline correctly - Situated in a high-end mall called The Shops (lol) in Manhattan’s West Side, Solana is opening a retail store called Solana Spaces.

A permanent brick and mortar presence that the all wise and powerful Solana Foundation views as a place where normies can come and get educated on all things Solana, Web3 and crypto.

Solana’s new retail store in NYC that looks exactly like Apple’s - From Fortune’s early look at Solana Spaces.

As you can see, it features a weird combination of retail space and physical art gallery for their Ethereum knock-off NFT collections, coming together inside a storefront that shamelessly knocks off Apple’s design vibe.

What a time to be alive.

Whatever Solana is trying to become, is NOT Web3

But the thing is, Solana is not Web3.

Sure, Solana has an associated cryptocurrency - The SOL token.

But if the underlying network that all associated applications run on top of can be halted by those who govern the chain thanks to pre-mined tokens granted to them at launch, then I’m sorry…

But you are not Web3.

It continues to frustrate me when I read quotes from major crypto media outlets like our friends at CoinDesk saying things like this gimmick from Solana is intended to bring Web3 into the real world.

Let me shout it a little louder for those in the cheap seats:

CENTRALISED SOLANA IS NOT WEB3!

They are nothing more than a corporation that they sickly disguise decision making under the guise of a foundation because it doesn’t sound like the polar opposite to what crypto and blockchain stands for.

At this point, I’ve just gotta shake my head.

This gimmick once again highlights that Solana is not the type of decentralised cryptocurrency project that matters from an ideological standpoint and will certainly not matter long term when users are presented with a truly decentralised, equally as efficient parallel running choice.

Solana are, and will remain, nothing more than a company in full control of a token and associated network governance.

Cool colour scheme though.

Final thoughts on Solana opening a retail store in NYC

While I’m obviously extremely critical of Solana and what they are portrayed to be in this space, I have to hand it to them for pushing crypto into the mainstream.

Solana Spaces will ultimately put crypto front and centre in one of the most busy cities on the planet.

While Solana may not be the answer to crypto’s end goal of decentralised, permissionless money, it is all a means to an end once the decentralised parallel has been built out to a usable level.

In the meantime, I certainly applaud them for taking the lead and providing invaluable marketing for the industry.

I just implore you to not lose sight of the true end goal of crypto.

Best of probabilities to you.

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26 comments
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Solana Spaces will ultimately put crypto front and centre in one of the most busy cities on the planet.

yeah. Sort of. I used to live in the neighborhood. I went into that mall one time and left pretty quickly after. If your shoes don't cost at least $8000 the vibe is that you aren't welcome. It was also pretty dead in there.

!LOL

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Ironic that Solana have tried to position themselves as a regular man's (read: poor man's) version of Ethereum.

Yet they've chosen a mall like that to place their retail store.

#marketing.

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(Edited)

What a move! I wonder what will happen when the full scale of regulation that is about to come hit them.

That must have been a huge investment. I guess they'll become a fancy apple-looking bank when regulation comes into effect.

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With Apply Pay and their move into BNPL, Apple are already their own Apple-looking bank haha.

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hyper fucking kek man.

I am so glad I got the fuck out of solana last year.

They're selling chinese-made schwag and retarded Sol APEs, badgers and samoyeds...

Why do people even buy NFTs if they don't have any utility? At least with my Gods Unchained and Splinterlands cards I can have a little fun....

People are so fucking retarded, it's just truly astounding.

But. lol. Were any of us Surprised that a Ukranian blockchain was a corrupt piece of shit run by techno-oligarch trannies? LOLOLOLOL. Death to Solana.

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Why do people even buy NFTs if they don't have any utility? At least with my Gods Unchained and Splinterlands cards I can have a little fun....

I just don't get Solana-based NFTs either.

NFTs do nothing more than prove ownership.

But if this is done on an underlying chain that can be halted, altered, restarted etc etc, then they literally have no value.

Solana based, community focused NFT projects are better off running their community via a database.

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Great Post!

!1UP

You can earn passive income by delegation of tribe tokens to "The Cartel"!


Click the banner to join "The Cartel" Discord server to know more!

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Hard to get around the web when you placate real life space to it. It is an effort for the weak mind.
Crypto will benefit from it in the long run.

!BEER

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I see Solana itself as nothing more than a marketing gimmick that will ultimately lead people to truly decentralised crypto projects.

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Your frustration is understandable!

Solana, XRP, Luna, Justin Sun, etc
I think of these tokens, and people as necessary in crypto because they help publicize the crypto world or they bring innovation, even if they use it manily tom advance themselves or enrich themselves.

This store of Solana's as you describe it is amazingly far from representing what crypto 8is suppose to be about. But if the Doggie Meme coins taught us anything, this is what sells to the masses.

We need to ride their waves and present our side of the argument.

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I wonder if they will randomly just halt the store...

Also begs the question... Will the store run on "wall-clock time" or will it run 30 minutes behind like the chain did for some time?

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I hadn't heard of this 'wall clock time' shit before!

Depending on who you ask, they'll say time is just a social construct, so whose to question what is right or wrong anyway.

Solana... 😂

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That looks slick! Marketing is the only thing SOLANA is really good at. Hope it helps the overall crypto space in general as you mentioned. And people don't get burned like Lunatics. 😵

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And people don't get burned like Lunatics. 😵

Shit, you spoke too soon.

Looks like SOL is experiencing an exploit that they can't fix literally right now.

What an absolute mess.

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Hahaha I thought the phone was crazy enough but holy shit... They are a mobile phone company now lol

I think you are right about them being an onboarding ramp for many new crypto users. Eventually, they will realize that it is complete garbage and when they start looking for alternatives they will find the decentralized ones, however long that takes.

The same thing is happening to big tech, why would Solana be an exception...

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I guess there's less regulatory oversight required to be a phone company than a bank...

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