The crypto community is coming back alive again. The Port is the first community hub for the Solana community and is docked in the Wynwood neighborhood of Miami. Started in August of 2024, the Port is where builders come to congregate, ideate, collaborate, and most importantly, ship products. This past week, the community hosted V2 of Ship Week, a weeklong demo space for teams and individuals to share what they've been working on in a collaborative space. The invite list is always stacked with interesting people who fly in from different parts of the US and are building or somehow affiliated with Solana on- and off-chain.
Ship Week is one of those third spaces for crypto people who are not really into the grandeur of conferences and the annoyance of hackathons. It's more intentional and allows people the space to really share what they've been obsessing over the last few months.
For example, my cats have been obsessed with the Switchboard.xyz plushie, and I see the founder every now and then at The Port, but it's actually nice getting an interactive product demo. If you're ever in the market for an oracle on Solana, Switchboard's in-demand app allows you to plug into different networks, as well as set different datasets.
It's also a space to catch up with people you haven't seen in the while -- people who are on the crypto circuit and actually live in Miami, but somehow never here. Every single seat is occupied, and with the open floor plan, it reminds me of what startup offices looked like in the 2010s. Everyone's on a laptop, or the talkbox phone booths are occupied with people taking pitch meetings or just yapping. There's also a plethora of food and drinks. If you like kabobs, then you're in luck. Every thing is laid up like a buffet. What's even more are the gatherings. I loved the pre-Ship Week event hosted at a speakeasy inside The Moore Design District. The music was great, and I saw some familiar faces from the last event, and the Telegram chat just keeps growing. Arnaud from Dune Analytics hosted a lunch, as well as offered their platforms support in collated a dashboard of projects.
Meanwhile, Solomon, the head of product at Solana Foundation, also presented the latest roadmap and updates in a deck titled "product experiences." Big things are coming in the passkey support category. Similar to Moonbeam and other chains, major work is being done to refine the whole passkeys and smart wallet experience. Lastly, there was a impromptu pitch competition of $1K given to the best project pitch. Whether you're a vibe coder, casually Solana enthusiasts, or hardcore shipper, there's something for everyone to feel included.
