Solana Blinks are on a mission to make web3 as easy as Apple Pay
Solana Sessions
Each month, we’re diving into one founder’s journey building on Solana, as well as noteworthy network updates to help readers get up to speed.
The Latest Solana Sessions Podcast
For this month’s Solana Sessions, we sat down with Dialect Founder and CEO Chris Osborn.
Dialect is designed to make the web3 user experience more seamless, intuitive and accessible. Its flagship product, Blockchain Links (Blinks), aims to make onchain transactions and actions easier to integrate. It co-launched blinks with the Solana Foundation in 2024 and has since powered more than 600 integrations for blockchain-enabled applications.
We discuss his founder journey, why Dialect decided to build on Solana, the expansion of DeFi and how blockchain technology could become integrated in consumer apps.
Note: This is a part of the Solana Sessions campaign that Token Relations and the Talking Tokens podcast are doing, diving into founders’ journeys and startups building on Solana.The episode is available on Talking Tokens on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.
Dialing into Better UX
Decentralized finance (DeFi) thrives on accessibility and speed. With this in mind, Dialect, a web3 user experience platform, leverages Solana in hopes to make crypto interactions just that, more accessible at a higher speed.
Traditionally, crypto can be seen as overly and unnecessarily complex because of all the different types of network-specific applications and numerous steps it takes to make a transaction. This showcases how difficult web3 technology is compared to web2 technologies. “The problem [crypto has] is just a really wacky user experience,” said Dialect Founder and CEO Chris Osborne. “Like, you're downloading a Chrome extension, which is not going to work in mobile on Safari, for example. So if you have an iPhone, good luck.”
However, Osborne believes web3 doesn’t have to be this complex and can be alleviated going forward - starting with click reduction.
Dialect’s flagship product, Blinks, is designed to allow onchain actions, like trading or lending, to be performed directly within a wallet or app. By reducing the amount of clicks and friction a user has to endure, Blinks aims to transform how users engage with DeFi.
“It’s like you Blink, teleport a button right into the environment, so you can take the action right from within your mobile wallet,” Osborne explained. “It's also like a consumer benefit for consumer apps because every extra click that your users are taking, you have massive attrition and fall off, especially if it's redirects to other sites.”
Since Solana offers one of the highest transactions per second across all blockchains at more than 1,300 TPS. Blinks can offer low-cost transactions, something that is needed to provide instant DeFi actions. In turn, use cases such as yield generation or access to collateral for trading can be easier and faster to access.
“Instead of making users navigate to products using links, [Dialect] lets products navigate to users,” Osborne said. “Imagine your mobile wallet becomes like your super app for everything you want to do onchain, and be able to discover trending DeFi protocols.”
Furthermore, Dialect leverages Solana’s parallelization, fast block times and cheap compute to deliver real-time, user-friendly experiences. This technical edge let's Dialect create a product that aims to transform mobile wallets into advanced apps that offer curated DeFi opportunities without having to leave the interface.
Looking ahead, Dialect aims to embed Blinks in every major mobile wallet with the goal of making DeFi as intuitive as tap-to-pay.
However, Osborne doesn’t mean expanding only within the web3 sector, he wants Blinks to be used within all technologies.
“Two years from now, I want blinks to be in every major mobile wallet, ones that can power experiences in decentralized exchanges for institutional providers,” Osborne said. “[Eventually], I want the X engineers and the X team to show up and actually integrate blinks.”
All in, Dialect wants to reduce barriers to entry to craft a future where web3 could empower anyone to engage with DeFi effortlessly. “It’s about letting products navigate to you, where you trust signing and execution,” Osborne said. “The goal with blinks is actually to allow any action from anywhere. And so it would be like [Apple Pay] on steroids.”
Taking A Blink At The Metrics
Over the past six months, Blinks hit:
600+ live integrations
160M views
22M interactions
7.5M transactions executed
What We’re Watching on Solana
Real World Asset value on Solana rose 5.6% on the month to $333.2M, a new high for the network, RWAxyz data shows
Solana Real Economic Value hit $8.35M on May 14, a quarterly high according to Blockworks data
Ondo Finance integrated its institutional-grade bridging solution with Solana, amongst other blockchains
Chainlink Labs released a Build on Solana program with Solana Foundation to provide web3 startups with technical resources and more
10K launched its creator app for users to watch content and earn rewards
VanEck partnered with Securitize to launch VBILL, a tokenized U.S. treasury fund, on Solana and three other chains
Yala announced its overcollateralized bitcoin-backed liquidity platform to Solana for users to earn bitcoin yield using Solana infrastructure
In NYC? Stop by Solana Accelerate conference or neighboring activations this week
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This product was built by Token Relations.
This information is for entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial advice, nor should it be used to make investment decisions. Cryptocurrencies are high risk and you should consult a financial professional before making any financial decisions. Make sure you do your own research.