In-depth explanation of Solana's latest Blink feature: Online sparking a big discussion in the community, is it a killer app or just a show of hands and feet?

Author: Frank, PANews

The latest Blink feature launched by Solana has ignited the crypto community.

This new feature can convert on-chain operations such as transactions, voting, payments, and minting into a shareable link or QR code, allowing users to complete the above on-chain operations directly on Twitter without redirecting to other pages. Once announced, this feature was hailed as the most Web3 application, perhaps opening the bridge between the Web2 and Web3 worlds. Can Blink really live up to the task, or is it just another fancy plugin?

Twitter one-click rush soil dog weapon

The Blink feature is just a plugin page visible to the user. Behind it, another protocol called Actions is bundled to achieve the product effect. The official introduction states: Actions is a protocol that creates and passes Solana transactions through URLs, allowing Solana to share Blinks or blockchain links anywhere, detect operation URLs, and expand them into a complete client experience.

In simple terms, developers use the Actions protocol to create on-chain operations they want to share as a link, and the user-side interactive page function is called Blink.

This feature was developed by Dialect labs. Dialect labs previously developed Dialect, a protocol specifically for message passing through smart contracts. In 2022, Dialect labs completed a $4.1 million seed round of financing, led by Multicoin Capital and Jump Capital. Currently, this feature is available on Twitter. Phantom and Backpack Wallet can directly interact with the Blink program.

However, in terms of operation, users need to first enable the associated application button for Twitter in the wallet’s settings to see this type of link. The biggest highlight of this protocol is that it saves developers a lot of development processes. They only need to create a recognizable link, which can be applied to various web pages.

This logic is somewhat similar to the QR code of Web2, except that the QR code converts a webpage into a QR code, while Blink converts an on-chain operation into a frontend page.

Developers no longer need to develop or call API interfaces like Jupiter separately for each adapted page. One link is applicable to all pages. For users, in the future, when they see a Solana Golden Dog project on Twitter, they don’t need to copy the token address and then open an exchange or a bot for interaction. They can directly complete the transaction process in one interface, which speeds up the efficiency of Dogecoin farming.

In addition, it has become more convenient for some activities that require on-chain voting. Or some artists can directly retweet links on social media such as Twitter to sell NFTs or other tokens with one click. According to the official demonstration of Solana, more social media applications or websites may be supported in the future. This includes creating Blink as a QR code to achieve more convenient mobile payment and other scenarios.

Can do everything or just simple upgrade?

It seems that the changes brought by Blink are significant, but many encryption users also believe that Blink still has significant flaws and will eventually be short-lived.

The main reason for this is to explore the basic product logic of Blink. As a Web3 application, Blink cannot avoid Chrome plugins and Wallets. Essentially, the implementation of Blink functionality depends on a protocol built into Phantom and Backpack, which is used to identify whether the web page has the Actions protocol. Only links that can be identified can be displayed as a Blink card. If the user’s selected browser or application does not support wallet application plugins, the Blink application cannot be identified. From this perspective, Blink’s capabilities are more like enhancing the application experience of Web3, rather than directly connecting to the Web2 client.

In addition, Dan Romero, the founder of Farcaster, commented, “They cannot work on mobile phones. 88% of Twitter usage is mobile.” Some netizens refute Dan Romero, saying that the Solana ecosystem has its own Web3 phone.

Another widely discussed topic on social media is security-related. Many users are concerned that if such an application protocol is exploited by phishers or Rug teams, it will become another channel for users to fall into traps. Dialect seems to have taken this into consideration, as the current rules indicate that only registered project teams can create such links.

However, according to PANews investigation, the current registration rules are also very simple and there are no strict restrictions. Interestingly, it seems that the registered domain name is not renewed at the moment, and the information displayed after opening is the domain name for sale.

According to the official documentation, some malicious projects, once reported or discovered, will require the community to mark the malicious behavior and make reminders on the page. However, this manual marking mechanism may just be a case of locking the barn door after the horse has bolted.

An imaginative attempt

In addition, many users in social media discussions believe that Blink offers a more reliable solution at least in terms of token distribution rewards (which is good news for KOL), or it can be embedded in Web3 phones, which can also become a relatively prominent advantage of Web3 phones.

It is worth mentioning that as early as 2022, Dialect had reached a cooperation with Solana Web3 mobile Saga and launched an open source chat application called Dial. Therefore, it is highly probable that the Blink function will be embedded in Solana Web3 mobile.

Whether Blink can truly become a killer application or not, from the current beginning, it is considered an important attempt to expand Web3 applications. Blink has been launched, and the Solana team is also actively involved in promoting the popularity of this application. Several important projects in the Solana ecosystem, such as Jupiter, Phantom, and Backpack, have integrated this feature as soon as possible.

At least from the perspective of the unified ecological momentum, the importance of Blink in Solana is self-evident. Twitter user @fjun99 complained when discussing Blink: ‘The Ethereum ecosystem really needs to work harder. It is equivalent to building countless buildings every day for infrastructure construction, but even the lobby in the building is not decorated.’ As this user said, perhaps focusing on user experience is currently the focus of public chain attention.