Solana
The Solana Foundation launches a new development tool to promote mainstream adoption
Solana’s new “shares” and “blockchain links” features allow developers to integrate Web3 transactions into websites, social media, and QR codes.
The Solana Foundation has introduced two new tools designed to make it easier to integrate Web3 into mainstream environments.
On June 25, the Solana Foundation launched “Actions” and “blockchain links” (Blinks), two tools allowing developers to integrate blockchain activities into websites, social networks and physical QR codes.
Actions allow users to perform native Web3 transactions, such as asset transfers, NFT interactions, voting, staking, and sending tips to content creators. Blinks allow developers to format any action into a shareable link, turning websites and social media into simple entry points for blockchain interactions.
“Actions and Blinks opens up blockchain protocols to more websites and applications,” said Jon Wong, head of ecosystem engineering at the Solana Foundation. “These tools lower barriers to entry and drive broader adoption of blockchain.”
New tool for the Solana ecosystem
The launch of Actions and Blinks comes as the broader Solana ecosystem strives to deliver new tools and services to developers. And the users
On June 21, Light Protocol and Helius Labs launched a testnet for ZK Compression — a technique designed to reduce the cost of Solana transactions by leveraging zero-knowledge proofs and call data. By minimizing the amount of data stored on-chain, ZK Compression claims to deliver significant fee savings by reducing the computational demand associated with Solana transactions.
“Only state roots are stored on-chain, and small zero-knowledge proofs confirm their validity on the Solana ledger,” Light Protocol explained. “The protocol uses small zero-knowledge proofs to ensure the validity of state stored as call data on the Solana ledger.”
Mert Mumtaz, CEO of Helius Labs, estimated that ZK Compression reduces the cost of airdropping tokens to one million users on Solana from $260,000 to $50. “We are introducing ZK compression into Solana, directly on the L1, without requiring an L2,” he added.
However, critics within the Ethereum community claim that ZK Compression contradicts the anti-layer 2 philosophy, claiming that ZK Compression essentially functions as a layer 2 (L2) solution.
“No matter how much Mert screams…compression is an L2,”tweeted Adam Cochran, vice president of operations at SBT Partners. “One day the Solana people will realize that what they have built is a good stack based on functionality/L2 validity and not a monolithic chain.”
Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder of Solana and CEO of Solana Labs, responded, saying that ZK Compression solves many of the problems he identifies in typical Ethereum-based Layer 2 solutions.
“It’s like an L2 without everything people complain about about L2s,” Yakovenko said. “It’s an L2 that doesn’t need a multisig security council, users don’t need to change channel ID, don’t need a governance token, don’t need no need for an external sequencer, Solana validators still receive all transaction fees.”
Firedancer and beyond
Solana is also preparing to deliver its long-awaited Firedancer upgrade, which will introduce a second network client developed by Jump Crypto.
Jump has been working on Firedancer since August 2022 and says the upgrade will “increase significantly”[e] The throughput, resilience and efficiency of the Solana network.
“People can stop calling it beta after Firedancer ships”, Yakovenko said at the Solana Crossroads 2024 conference in May. “You want different people working on the same component, so the likelihood of a bug occurring in both [clients] is practically zero.
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