Translation: Blockchain in Vernacular
Recently, an emerging and useful technology has emerged in the field of Web3 and blockchain technology — Solana Blockchain Links, or Blinks for short. What’s special about this technology is how it transforms cumbersome blockchain operations into a concise and clear link sharing experience, thereby lowering the threshold for users to operate blockchains. In this article, I will introduce this technology in detail and point out the various problems that Blinks can solve in Web3.
1. What is Blinks?
Blinks (Blockchain Links) is an innovative gadget launched by Solana blockchain that can be shared on different social platforms, such as Twitter and Telegram, through links. Through the gadgets generated by Blinks, users can perform different on-chain operations on a simple and clear interface, making the entire complex process smoother and simpler. For users, compared with traditional methods, users need to enter different websites before operations. Using Blinks on social platforms can complete the entire blockchain transaction process immediately, greatly reducing the threshold for blockchain operations. When I saw the introduction and diagram of Blinks on the Solana website, I was shocked. I think Blinks can indeed effectively solve the current problems faced in Web3.
2. How Blinks works
Blinks handles on-chain transactions for each application through Solana Actions’ standard API, and uses URLs to execute sends and operations, recording the entire transaction process, allowing users to approve and sign transactions directly from the Solana wallet during the process.
3. Application scenarios and advantages of Blinks
With Blinks, Web3 projects or NFT creators can provide ordinary users with a more accessible platform, thereby expanding their user base. For example, users can easily purchase NFTs, participate in prediction markets, query airdrop information, and participate in interactive games through Blinks. These activities originally required high technical barriers and complex operation steps, but now they can be completed almost without learning through Blinks, which greatly improves the user experience and effectively increases user traffic.
From Solana's official documentation, we can see that Blinks technology can currently support most Web2 social software and can be integrated into the platform using the corresponding design style. Using the corresponding design style can enhance the user experience and confidence, and make them more confident that the relevant components are not phishing software.
4. Blinks related projects?
After Solana launched Blinks technology, it caused a heated discussion on Twitter. The most famous one was a Twitter account called SEND (@thesendcoin), which showed as many as 50 examples and use cases of Blinks on the platform.
Later, the project used Blinks's function to launch 100,000 NFTs of the Send It series, with a reserve price of even as high as 0.42 SOL. The project immediately launched a token economy. Based on the on-chain operations of the above projects, the SEND project is likely to be operated by Solana insiders, and then Blinks just launched this hot topic to hype it up.
5. What problem does Blinks solve?
Although Blinks technology is relatively new at the moment, many projects are seizing this opportunity to gain visibility. But in the long run, I think Blinks technology can indeed effectively solve the current problems facing Web3. I think one of the problems currently facing Web3 projects is that the user conversion rate is very low.
Currently, when we make different transactions, users need to constantly switch between different websites. For example, when we buy Solana NFT, we need to open Magic Eden. When we want to convert tokens, we need to go to Raydium to exchange tokens. When we want to borrow money, we need to go to Solend, and even to use Sol as a liquidity pledge, we need to go to Jito. These conversions affect the user experience every time, especially for users who know less about Web3.
Using Blinks can effectively solve the problem of user conversion rate and greatly reduce the threshold for users. Using the API on Solana Actions to create components can provide users with a smoother experience.
In addition to user experience, Blinks also brings simpler and more direct solutions to project development and operation teams. Operation teams can use Blinks components to promote projects more effectively and attract users through different experiences. From the perspective of the development team, Blinks provides the team with more standardized modules for reference, which can effectively reduce the difficulty and time of development.
Based on the above, although Solana Blinks is still a very new technology, I believe that many projects will develop and gain popularity from it. But in the long run, I think the development of Blinks technology can bring a more user-friendly experience. I hope that in the future, in addition to the Solana chain, we can also see similar technological developments.
