原文标题：Solana Takes Action -- Solana is giving crypto a glimpse of its mainstream future with Actions and Blinks.
Original article by: Arjun Chand
Original source: bankless
Translated by: Eason, Mars Finance
If bringing cryptocurrency to users was a race, Solana might be winning it with the introduction of Actions and Blinks — development frameworks that bring cryptocurrency directly to any website on the internet.
Imagine you’re browsing Twitter and you come across an NFT that you just have to have. Normally, this would probably take you on a journey through web3 where you’d have to go through all sorts of tedious “standard” transaction steps to buy the NFT. But with Blinks, it’s just a click.
It may seem like a small thing, but it’s a friction-breaking superpower.
Let’s take a look at how Blinks is a major step in the right direction of making crypto more user-friendly, and why Solana leading the way in user experience is a big deal.
What are Solana Actions and Blinks?
While Blinks are undoubtedly cool, they are powered by something even more fundamental: Solana Actions. Think of Actions as the building blocks of Blinks.
These operations are essentially APIs that can customize on-chain transactions into various forms, such as links, QR codes, buttons, and widgets (common in crypto applications). The key advantage is that you can integrate the main functions of any application (such as exchanging or purchasing NFTs) into any other front end.
This is a big step forward, but integrations like this are already fairly common in the world of open source and composable crypto. The real deal comes when you combine Solana Actions with Blinks. Blinks, or blockchain links, turn these actions into shareable, metadata-rich links. Think of them as clickable shortcuts to the blockchain.
With Blinks, you can share specific on-chain actions (such as purchasing an NFT) as a URL on almost any website that can display a URL — basically anywhere on the internet.
This means you can initiate actions like buying an NFT, investing in memecoin, or sending a payment simply by clicking a link, without leaving the app you’re using.
Think about how many times you’ve tried and failed to get your average friend to mint an NFT or purchase a specific asset on-chain. Even if they were eager to do so, they faced a steep learning curve to understand how cryptocurrency works.
Blink is the cheat code. Share a link, they click, and bam — they’ve just done their first encrypted thing. Easy.
Sure, there’s still a learning curve (you have to have a Solana wallet), but cryptocurrency adoption won’t happen overnight. We need to remove friction incrementally, and Blinks is a big step forward.
Early signs that these features can actually enable people to do more on-chain are very positive: after Blinks launched, the number of daily transactions processed by Solana reached its highest level in nearly two years.
Transactions on Solana have been trending strongly upward over the past year. Source: Artemis
Currently, Blinks is completely optional. To use Blinks on X, you must flip a switch in your Solana wallet (Phantom, Backpack, etc.).
Flickering on Solana and Farcaster frames
Some people compare Blinks to Farcaster Frames, let’s quickly address that. Both Blinks and Frames offer similar functionality — they allow you to turn regular posts on Twitter and Farcaster into on-chain actions, respectively. But here’s the thing:
Frames only works on Farcaster – You have to be on Farcaster to use Frames. This is pretty cool, but Farcaster has limited reach because its user base is relatively small and crypto-native.
Blinks works everywhere – Blinks can be integrated into any website to reach a wider audience. They are currently compatible with X, which has a much wider audience than Farcaster. In addition, Blinks is already supported on Reddit, TikTok, Discord, and more.
So while the two features are similar in concept, Blinks is more widely distributed due to its universal compatibility with any website on the internet.
One thing to note: Blinks are currently a desktop concept, meaning they only work with desktop crypto wallets. In contrast, Frames have always been mobile-first, and we expect adoption of mobile-centric crypto to increase in the future.
Overall, we shouldn’t nitpick over the differences and similarities between Blinks and Frames. Both Blinks and Frames are big wins for crypto in their own ways. They make it easier for everyone to interact with crypto. Solana or Base, who cares? The whole is always greater than the sum of its parts, and we need to expand the crypto market by building more crypto-friendly features.
Conclusion
We’ve seen time and again that the Solana ecosystem runs like a well-oiled machine. 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 more were supported by Blinks on day one.
Only time will tell how successful Blinks will be. But it’s clear that Blinks is a killer feature and the launch went incredibly smoothly — it perfectly leverages Solana’s network effects.
Mainstream adoption doesn’t happen in the blink of an eye (pun intended). Features like Blinks push the entire crypto space forward. Shout out to Solana!
