Speaker 1: I'm Stacy Marie Ishmael, Managing editor of Crypto for Bloomberg News,
Speaker 1: and this is Bloomberg Crypto at Daily Bloomberg. I heard podcast.
Speaker 1: It's Thursday, August eighteen. Slana is one of the newer
Speaker 1: block chains and crypto, and for a while it was
Speaker 1: positioned by its fans as a challenger to the dominance
Speaker 1: of Ethereum. Like the Ethereum blockchain, Salana offers things like
Speaker 1: n f t s or non fungible tokens, smart contracts,
Speaker 1: and its own native token called saul. Salana's developers say
Speaker 1: their blockchain is a faster and cheaper alternative to existing technology.
Speaker 1: Solana's critics, on the other hand, points of frequent outages, downtime,
Speaker 1: and outright hacks that have plagued the platform. A recent
Speaker 1: hack in August drained more than seven thousand crypto wall
Speaker 1: it's tied to the Salona blockchain. But despite these challenges,
Speaker 1: interest in Salana remains high, so high, in fact, that
Speaker 1: there's now a real life retail location at a mall
Speaker 1: in New York City. So I'm at the front of
Speaker 1: the Salanta store. The first thing I've really noticed there's
Speaker 1: a stick at the very bottom the ce Salana pay
Speaker 1: accepted here. It really looks like you've ever been to
Speaker 1: a mall and seen an Apple store or a um
Speaker 1: like an Xbox store where they sell technology. It looks
Speaker 1: like one of those stories, but it's crypto. So it's
Speaker 1: called Salana, Spaces and Bloomberg reports Emmanuel. John Milton went
Speaker 1: to the mall to check it out. Manuel, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for joining us in the studio here in
Speaker 1: New York today. Of course, it's it's a pleasure to
Speaker 1: be here. Let's start with what is Salano. So Salana
Speaker 1: is a blockchain and on applock chain, slant offer is
Speaker 1: and f T s um. They have their own token
Speaker 1: and they also have smart contracts that people can use.
Speaker 1: So you went to this mall, you went to Hudson
Speaker 1: Yards for Salana, which is a blockchain. Why does a
Speaker 1: blockchain need a store? So crypto is very ethereal to
Speaker 1: many people. It's something that isn't easy to understand. It's
Speaker 1: something that even if you understand, you're not sure if
Speaker 1: you understand. So for many people, having someone walk you
Speaker 1: through that process might be really helpful. This is somewhere
Speaker 1: where someone who is new to crypto can walk in
Speaker 1: and really see what Salanta is trying to build. That's
Speaker 1: kind of the idea behind Salanta's store to have a
Speaker 1: big Salana logo in the middle, with three bars for
Speaker 1: their logo out a little stations. It looks like you
Speaker 1: can do tutorials on them as well as just merchandise,
Speaker 1: so like hats ole, like Fannie packs, almost jackets. But
Speaker 1: it's not a store that's run by the sal on
Speaker 1: a blockchain itself for the Slanta Foundation itself. Right, this
Speaker 1: is somebody who's affiliated or like part of that ecosystem,
Speaker 1: but not the developer, So they're not they're independently operated
Speaker 1: and they receive funding from the Slanta Foundation. And how
Speaker 1: they do that is they have grants that they give out.
Speaker 1: So the actual Spaces store is not run by the
Speaker 1: Slana Foundation, but it's run instead by Slant of Spaces,
Speaker 1: who's an independent operator. Got it. This sounds to me
Speaker 1: like kind of like an Apple store in the sense
Speaker 1: of a lot of you know, Apple's retail experience isn't
Speaker 1: only about here's an iPhone, here's a watch. It's also
Speaker 1: about we're going to teach you how to use our
Speaker 1: very expensive and fancy equipment. But in the meantime, we'll
Speaker 1: teach you how to droll, or we'll teach you how
Speaker 1: to do photography. Is it, Like, is that the kind
Speaker 1: of educational experience? Like what did you do one? Like?
Speaker 1: What was that? Like? So, there's a couple of tutorials
Speaker 1: they have and if you complete the tutorials, you get USDC,
Speaker 1: which is a digital stable coin that's packed to the
Speaker 1: US dollar. So how many like how much money are
Speaker 1: you really getting? It's to USDC? Two yes. And I
Speaker 1: talked to the CEO of Salanta Spaces and he said
Speaker 1: that they had a thousand tutorials that were completed, and
Speaker 1: that's a lot of a lot of people. And and
Speaker 1: he said that a lot of the people, like the
Speaker 1: people that came in, the only crypto things that they
Speaker 1: might have would be those USDC or the n f
Speaker 1: T s that they might win from going in. So um,
Speaker 1: the guy that started the store is someone that has
Speaker 1: retail experiences, a veteran, and he's like when I was
Speaker 1: talking to him, he basically was saying that I like,
Speaker 1: they designed it for this. They they're like store designers,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of the way they came into it.
Speaker 1: They were they said that They were new to crypto UM,
Speaker 1: but not new to like a story detail experience exact.
Speaker 1: It was it full when you went, like how many
Speaker 1: people were there? So I went twice. I went there
Speaker 1: the first time. Sometimes when you come in as a
Speaker 1: reporter that people look at you differently, So I thought
Speaker 1: it could be fun to just go with my friends
Speaker 1: and just observed and see what I saw. So I
Speaker 1: went on Saturday, I think that weekend. The opening week
Speaker 1: ended up on Thursday. I went on Saturday and it
Speaker 1: was full. There's people are everywhere in the store. There
Speaker 1: were Sauna, spaces ambassadors, who are people that are just
Speaker 1: in the store. You can kind of think of like
Speaker 1: the people at the age were they what were they wearing?
Speaker 1: Were very cool, very cool lacture, its um sauna, the
Speaker 1: Space store has a lot of cool merch. So I
Speaker 1: went in there and I was with my friends, were
Speaker 1: just walking around looking at tutorials. They have murals on
Speaker 1: the wall that can display n f T s and
Speaker 1: also just normal pictures which is interesting UM. And then
Speaker 1: they had a visualization of the sawna Blockshane in action.
Speaker 1: So that's another example of Salanna saying, Hey, I know
Speaker 1: that this is hard to understand, let's bring this to
Speaker 1: someone exactly, let's show you. And and then I went
Speaker 1: on Tuesday morning with your reporter, had on with my reporter,
Speaker 1: had on favorite movies. Okay, the reporting of the recording.
Speaker 1: We talked, and that time there were two people that
Speaker 1: came through. The store was there for four years. Minutes
Speaker 1: right after it opened. It was pretty empty that morning.
Speaker 1: And then right after that happened. Interestingly enough, the the
Speaker 1: Salana hack happened that morning. And the CEO that of
Speaker 1: slat Space that I was talking to you about earlier,
Speaker 1: he said he he was worried that I was in
Speaker 1: there asking people about the hack, and he's like, these
Speaker 1: people don't know anything about crypto. And I can kind
Speaker 1: of see his point because he's like, these people are customers,
Speaker 1: were really new. He doesn't want them to be scared
Speaker 1: off by oh my gosh, I put my money on
Speaker 1: this fall out now it's all gone. Well, that's interesting.
Speaker 1: So when when we're talking about the Salana hack, because
Speaker 1: there's a lot of hacks, so I feel like every
Speaker 1: week I'm like, this is the specific hack we're referring to.
Speaker 1: It was, you know, nearly eight thousand wallets, so kind
Speaker 1: of like your bank account for crypto were compromised and
Speaker 1: totally drained. And these were wallets that were linked to
Speaker 1: the Salana blockchain. But it's interesting to hear you say
Speaker 1: that the CEO was worried people would get booked because
Speaker 1: bad things happen in krypto, but actually, yeah, bad things
Speaker 1: definitely happened in crypto, and it is that part of
Speaker 1: the educational experience that they're offering, like are they helping
Speaker 1: people understand the risks? From what I saw, it wasn't
Speaker 1: about risk. It was more about, hey, let's learn this.
Speaker 1: Look at all these cool new things. So was there
Speaker 1: anybody you know when you were talking to these ambassadors,
Speaker 1: was there anybody that you kind of talk to about
Speaker 1: Merged or any of the other things that you're describing. Yes.
Speaker 1: So when we walked through the store, there's a Slanta
Speaker 1: Spased ambassador named Cameron Survey. What's going on? My name
Speaker 1: is Camera Manuel And he was great, what do you
Speaker 1: think the most popular item is here to buy for someone?
Speaker 1: People just love love the swag the n F team
Speaker 1: Merged like the DJ and APE Academy stuff that we
Speaker 1: have and are they're really good at figuring out what
Speaker 1: customers might want, and that's probably the appeal of that
Speaker 1: store and why Salana because they have to differentiate from
Speaker 1: an ethereum from bitcoin, and that seems to be a
Speaker 1: way to do it. It's a it's a really good
Speaker 1: way for Salana to just see their product out in
Speaker 1: the real world. A lot of companies don't get to
Speaker 1: do that, and like, for example, if you get it
Speaker 1: taken home, you don't like, you have no idea how
Speaker 1: that customer might interact with it. But they're they're just
Speaker 1: watching these people do these tutorials. If someone keeps getting
Speaker 1: hung up on the same part of a certain tutorial,
Speaker 1: then they're like, oh, this is something that's really confusing
Speaker 1: for people. So this is a definitely a great opportunity
Speaker 1: for Salana to look into what people are struggling with
Speaker 1: and it kind of just ties in with their theme
Speaker 1: of being close to the customers. It's a vote we're
Speaker 1: just here to reach out to people and break down
Speaker 1: that barrier because being in front of the screen sometimes
Speaker 1: it is a little intimidating when it's the deep, deep
Speaker 1: dark web. Right coming up, you'll hear more from Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Reports to Emmanuel John Milton about Salana's I r L
Speaker 1: strategy and whether we'll see more of these kinds of
Speaker 1: stores representing digital asset firms cropping up in the future. So,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the things you've really emphasized is
Speaker 1: the like educational elements. People come there, they make a
Speaker 1: couple of books, they learn some stuff. Is this also
Speaker 1: a way for you know, the CEO and the folks
Speaker 1: behind the store and perhaps tangentially the Salona Foundation to
Speaker 1: do some market research on customers for sure? So we
Speaker 1: spoke with Salanta employee Anna Un who was in the store,
Speaker 1: and she works for strategy and the payments team at
Speaker 1: Salanta Labs, which is part of the Sana ecosystem. I've
Speaker 1: been observing for the day. I think it's pretty nice
Speaker 1: that people get to learn about a WHAT three company
Speaker 1: and an in real life. And she was there just
Speaker 1: collecting research about people. She was talking about what she
Speaker 1: was seeing, what people engaged with. People showed up super
Speaker 1: excited about Salana. So a lot of people probably came
Speaker 1: here because they knew about us. Um I would say
Speaker 1: fifty fifty I write down like how people interact. I
Speaker 1: sometimes go up to them and asking, how do you
Speaker 1: do you have any feedback for the tutorial for the station, like,
Speaker 1: do you have any questions? And I the most interesting
Speaker 1: thing is I've been a couple of Salona activation about.
Speaker 1: As well as speaking with Anna, I also spoke with
Speaker 1: CEO of Sauna Spaces, the Boon Rby, and he said
Speaker 1: that the company plans to open spaces all over the world.
Speaker 1: And he said, with a certainty, there's another space opening.
Speaker 1: Even if you're not trying to get into the crypto space.
Speaker 1: Sauna Spaces offers people the opportunity to walk in and
Speaker 1: just experience crypto and learn about it. Even if you're
Speaker 1: not taking necessarily any financial risk with this. You're just
Speaker 1: going in and just checking it out. The thing that
Speaker 1: they don't tell you, though, is about the possibility that
Speaker 1: you'll get hacked and lose all your money. Correct if
Speaker 1: if you do those tutorials that you the two s
Speaker 1: TC far you have to open up a platform wallet,
Speaker 1: and I don't think those have been hacked, but it's
Speaker 1: definitely a risk that you have to account for. And
Speaker 1: this is, you know, I think very much a criticism
Speaker 1: that folks have levied against crypto companies at all levels,
Speaker 1: which is they're very happy to tell you about the benefits.
Speaker 1: But it's like you know, pharmaceutical advertising, where maybe in
Speaker 1: really tiny print at the end or somebody reading super
Speaker 1: fast in the commercial will be like may cause death.
Speaker 1: Which is not to say that crypto is you know,
Speaker 1: going to cause death imminent or otherwise. But I do
Speaker 1: think it's a missing piece in some of these conversations.
Speaker 1: Is this idea of making sure that people really understand
Speaker 1: the risks as well as any potential benefits of what
Speaker 1: they're getting into. Well, thank you very much for joining
Speaker 1: us today, Manual. It's been a pleasure having you on
Speaker 1: the show. Thank you for having me. You can find
Speaker 1: more of a Manual's reporting on the Bloomberg Terminal on
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot com or follow him on Twitter. He's at
Speaker 1: emmy underscore j N. That's at I M M y
Speaker 1: underscore g N on the next episode of Bloomberg Crypto.
Speaker 1: The fair of missing out, often known as FOMO, can
Speaker 1: be a driving force for some casual crypto investors, especially
Speaker 1: when it's their close friends and family who are encouraging
Speaker 1: them to get involved. Personal relationships are often key in
Speaker 1: bringing new people into crypto, and that's especially true when
Speaker 1: the market is doing well, but what happens when the
Speaker 1: market shift and people start losing money. Tomorrow, Bloomberg Senior
Speaker 1: editor Anna Airera talks of Brian Horrigan and Adam Garaman,
Speaker 1: two friends with firsthand experience of what it's like to
Speaker 1: be in that exact position. This is Bloomberg Crypto, a
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Speaker 1: at Crypto. The supervising producer of Bloomberg Crypto is Vicky Vergolina.
Speaker 1: Our senior producer is Janet Babin. Desta wonder At is
Speaker 1: our engineer. Original music by Leo Sidron. I'm Stacy Maria Shmall.
Speaker 1: We'll be back tomorrow.