June 25th, the Solana Foundation announced two new product features, Solana Actions and Blinks (Blockchain Links). These features allow users to integrate blockchain transactions into any internet environment, potentially changing the way users interact with blockchains.
In simple terms, Solana Actions provide a standardized way to pass transactions at multiple levels through an API, allowing signed transactions or messages to be passed directly to users from applications. This allows users to execute chain transactions on various platforms, including websites, social media, and physical QR codes.
Blinks is a client application that converts Solana Actions into shareable, metadata-rich UIs for interacting with and executing actions.
The application scenarios for Solana Actions include providing security for the Solana network by staking SOL, allowing customers to make payments at retail stores by scanning QR codes, token minting, direct use of cryptocurrency for payments while browsing shopping websites, recharging trading accounts before adding margin, and integrating blockchain functionality into gaming platforms for the purchase and trade of in-game assets.
The application scenarios for Blinks include rewarding content creators on social media without complex wallet settings, minting custom NFTs or participating in governance voting directly from a URL, and allowing users to vote on community policies through links in newsletters.
The advantages of using both include enhancing the user experience by bringing signed transactions to the user’s location, increasing accessibility to Web3 applications from any platform, eliminating friction in sending chain transactions by reducing the need for multiple clicks on many websites, and simplifying the process of integrating chain operations into existing platforms, websites, or applications for developers.
The Solana ecosystem has been a focus of the crypto market, and the announcement of these two new product features by its foundation has garnered great expectations from various institutions and analysts, who have publicly expressed their views on Actions and Blinks.
Positive views:
Chainlink Labs engineer @pappas9999: Ethereum has Lens Open Actions and Farcaster Frames, but they are limited to dApps built on its protocol. Solana Blinks can be integrated into almost any application, making them very powerful.
I look forward to trying out Actions and Blinks in my spare time and am interested in seeing the cool use cases that developers come up with by integrating traditional web applications with Solana transactions.
Eigenlayer engineer @dabit3: After building many Farcaster frameworks, I also looked at Solana Blinks + Actions and found many similarities. But Blinks meet user needs, which may be more powerful and viral.
This is a great idea. The user experience/design/implementation looks very refined. The people involved did an excellent job. This is an example of a great idea proposed by the ecosystem that will benefit everyone outside the ecosystem.
Multicoin Capital managing partner @KyleSamani: These primitives will drive the adoption of crypto applications in ways that other ecosystems cannot.
Venture capital firm Variant co-founder: Blinks are ideal for attracting existing users of “desktop browser wallets,” who are also used to using “desktop encrypted Twitter.” I expect to see Blinks anywhere with a wallet, including mobile users.
QuickNode analyst: Solana Actions and Blockchain Links (Blinks) are two major innovations for Solana that are expected to fundamentally change the way users interact with blockchains.
Youbi Capital JimsYoung: An exciting innovation. Blinks work well on the desktop version of Chrome (P1), but on Mobile X (P2), it does not display the “purchase xx amount” option. Users need to click on card-style elements and navigate to the http://jup.ag website to make a purchase. However, this is still an important step forward.
Researcher @MasterCui: Solana’s latest launch of Action & Blinks allows any client to obtain corresponding unsigned transaction metadata through the URL. Blinks can parse Actions and build a front-end interaction interface, bridging the transaction -> link -> visualization loop, with great disruptive and social value.
Research institution Eli5DeFi: Actions and Blinks connect any website or application, making Solana the center of on-chain interaction, simplifying users’ entry into web3 processes and enhancing security by restricting interactions to whitelisted domains. This innovation is great, and I believe that more applications will use it.
Analyst @invest_answers: This is the ultimate answer to changing the rules of the game. Transforming any action into a link, saving merchant and credit card fees, fast, user-friendly transactions, empowering developers – don’t miss out on this disruptive technology.
KOL @gemgemcrypto: Potential for exploitation by scammers. However, it has promising prospects in token distribution, rewards, and KOLs.
Developer @fjun99: This may be the future direction towards large-scale applications. Among them, the significance of Blink is far greater than ENS.
Negative views:
Celestia co-founder NickWhite: I think Blinks will perform well on native blockchain platforms, such as a Solana version equivalent to Farcaster, or Farcaster itself, but I am skeptical about whether existing platforms like Twitter will support it.
GoPlus Security @gbeekeeper: These two features have great disruptive and social value, but there is still a certain threshold, and it is not as fancy as it is being advertised.
However, to see the interaction interface displayed by Blinks, users need to use certain product plugins, so there is still a certain threshold. There have been countless products that have worked on Twitter plugins in the past, and the biggest obstacle is still installing the plugin itself.
On Twitter, where phishing and fraud are rampant, with the above interactions, it is likely to greatly increase the efficiency of fraud and reduce the cost of fraud. In the past, scammers needed to carefully create phishing websites to deceive users, but now they only need an image + some metadata to carry out large-scale fraud. If the ability to control risks and prevent fraud cannot be effectively added to Blinks, this feature is likely to be adopted on a large scale by scammers.
Analyst @WorldNet_web3: Our concern is that the required dialect plugin is a barrier. Plus, the risk of fraud on X increases, with significant security risks.
KOL @FefeDemeny: There is a huge risk factor for fraud and fake tokens in this innovation.
Researcher @MarginATM: Social network X has long been known for fraud, false projects, and phishing. Are Solana Actions and Blinks really necessary and useful?
