Solana takes action | Bankless

If Bringing crypto to users where they are was a competition, Solana might have won it with the Introducing Actions and Blinks – Developer frameworks that bring crypto directly to any website on the internet.

Imagine scrolling through Twitter and spotting an NFT you absolutely must have. Normally, this could send you on a Web3 odyssey where you have to go through the various cumbersome “standard” transaction steps to purchase the NFT. But with Blinks, it’s done with a single click.

This may all seem like a small, inconsequential thing, but it is a friction-destroying superpower.

Let’s take a look at how Blinks are a major step in the right direction to make crypto more user-friendly and why it’s a big deal that Solana is leading the way in UX👇

What are Solana Actions and Blinks?

While Blinks are undoubtedly cool, their power rests on something even more fundamental: Solana actions. Think of actions as building blocks for blinks.

These actions are essentially APIs that allow on-chain transactions to be customized into various forms such as links, QR codes, buttons, and widgets (commonly seen in crypto applications). The main benefit is that you can take the main function of any app (like exchanging or buying NFTs) and Integrate it into any other front end.

This is a big step forward, but in the open-source and composable world of cryptocurrencies, such integrations are already pretty common. The real kicker comes when you combine Solana Actions with Flashing. Flashing or Blockchain linkstake these actions and turn them into shareable, metadata-rich links. Think of them as clickable shortcuts to the blockchain.

Blinks allows you to share a specific on-chain action (like buying an NFT) as a URL on virtually any website that can display a URL – basically anywhere on the internet.

This means you can Take action like buying NFTs, investing in memecoins, or sending payments, all without ever leaving the app you already use, just by clicking a link.

Trade SOL-BONK | Phantom

Phantom: Trade SOL-BONK.

Think about how many times you’ve tried to get your regular friend to mint an NFT or buy a certain asset on the blockchain but failed. Even if they’re happy to do it, they’ll have a steep learning curve ahead of them to understand how crypto works.

Blinking is the cheat code. They share a link, click on it and boom – they’ve done their first crypto thing. It’s that simple.

Sure, there’s still a learning curve (you need a Solana wallet), but cryptocurrency adoption won’t happen overnight. We need to remove the friction points one step at a time, and Blinks are a huge step forward.

And the first signs that such features actually encourage people to do more things onchain are quite positive: After the launch of Blinks, Solana reached a almost two-year high in the number of daily transactions.

Currently, Blinks are completely optional. To use Blinks on X, you need to flip a switch in your Solana wallet (phantom, Backpacketc.).

Blinks on Solana vs. Farcaster Frames

There have been some discussions comparing Blinks to Farcaster Frames, so let’s briefly cover them. Both Blinks and Frames offer similar functionality – they allow you to turn normal posts on Twitter or Farcaster into onchain actions, respectively. But here’s the catch:

• Frame only works on Farcaster – You must be logged into Farcaster to use Frames. While this is very cool, Farcaster has a limited reach due to its relatively small and crypto-native user base.
• Blinks work everywhere – Blinks can be integrated into any website, reaching a much larger audience. They are currently compatible with X, which has a much larger audience than Farcaster. Additionally, Blinks are already supported on more platforms such as Reddit, TikTok, Discord, etc.

Although the two features are conceptually similar, Blinks are more widely used due to their universal compatibility with any website on the Internet.

One caveat: Blinks are currently a Desktop only concept, meaning they only work with desktop crypto wallets. In contrast, Frames are entirely mobile-focused, and the adoption of mobile-focused cryptocurrencies is expected to increase in the future.

In general, we shouldn’t nitpick about the differences and similarities between Blinks and Frames. Both Blinks and Frames are big wins for crypto in their own way. They make interacting with crypto easier for everyone. Solana or Base, who cares? The whole is always greater than the sum of its parts and we need to grow the crypto pie by building more crypto-friendly features.

Final thoughts

Time and time again, we see the Solana ecosystem come together like a well-oiled machine and just ship. The launch of Blinks was no exception; the entire ecosystem was on board from the start – top players like Phantom, Jupiter, Helius, Backpack, Tensor and others have supported Blinks from day one.

Only time will tell how successful Blinks will be. But it is clear that Blinks is a killer feature, and the launch was exceptionally smooth – leveraging Solana’s network effects perfectly.

Mainstream adoption doesn’t happen overnight (pun intended). Features like Blinks are moving the entire crypto space forward. Kudos to Solana!