Solana: A Leading Force in Public Blockchain Technology Innovation
Introduction
Solana employs a hybrid consensus mechanism of Delegated Proof of Stake (PoS) and Proof of History (PoH) as a public blockchain project. By incorporating a timestamp mechanism along with multithreaded parallel processing and state compression technology, Solana achieves high throughput and low transaction costs.
Solana has introduced three innovative technologies: Actions, Blinks, and ZK Compression, which mark its expansion into the SocialFi domain and significantly reduce transaction costs from current levels. These three new technologies will aid Solana’s future development, generating new market expectations. Coupled with the application for a spot ETF, Solana’s prospects and narrative are now full of potential and imagination.
Actions
Definition
According to Solana’s official documentation, Actions is defined as an API designed to enable websites to interact with the Solana blockchain, facilitating on-chain activities such as transfers, voting, and donations. It is a standards-compliant API that returns transactions on the Solana blockchain, which can be previewed, signed, and sent in various contexts, including QR codes, buttons, widgets, and websites.
In non-technical terms, Actions are predefined, pending transactions within Solana that allow users to execute blockchain transactions without navigating to different applications or web pages. Actions provide an abstract description of Solana’s on-chain transaction processing mechanism, encompassing various task execution instructions such as transaction processing, contract execution, and data operations. Users can send various transaction commands via actions, such as on-chain asset transfers and token purchases. Additionally, developers can utilize actions to call and execute smart contracts, enabling complex on-chain logic.
The introduction of Actions has made Solana network application development and user transactions more convenient, adding support for the execution of on-chain smart contracts and laying a solid foundation for Solana’s entry into the SocialFi domain.
Advantages
Efficient Processing: One of Solana’s primary advantages over other public blockchains is its high performance. Solana maintains this high-performance ethos in the design and adoption of Actions. Solana employs a technology called Turbo Transactions, which utilizes multiple CPU cores to process transactions in parallel, further increasing network throughput and execution speed. This enables rapid execution of actions in large-scale networks while maintaining efficiency and stability.
Low Network Latency: Thanks to Solana’s high performance, the processing latency of Actions is also very low, providing users with a smoother and more efficient transaction experience. This low-latency advantage offers developers more opportunities to build more complex and interactive applications without worrying about network delays affecting user experience, thereby strengthening and enhancing the competitiveness of the entire ecosystem.
Higher Flexibility: Through Actions, users can call smart contracts, execute various complex business logic, and perform data storage and retrieval functions. This flexibility makes Actions a powerful tool that meets various user needs in the blockchain domain. Additionally, Actions support extensibility, allowing users to customize them according to their requirements, further enhancing their flexibility and applicability.
Blinks
Definition
According to Solana’s official Twitter documentation, Blinks are defined as blockchain links, a new primitive that transforms on-chain operations into shareable links. Blinks can convert any Solana Actions into a shareable, metadata-rich link. This allows clients that support actions (such as browser extension wallets or bots) to display more functionality to users. Applications supporting Blinks only need to detect the Actions-compatible URL, parse it, and allow users to interact with it through a standardized user interface.
In layman’s terms, Blinks is a concrete manifestation of Actions. This manifestation can be in the form of a QR code, a URL, or a clickable button, among others. Blinks can transform any Solana Actions into various forms of dissemination on any information platform, allowing clients that detect Actions (like browser extension wallets or bots) to present additional functionalities to users. When using Blinks, users can operate specific tasks on the current platform page without needing to enter the Dapp behind the concrete manifestation (such as a QR code or URL), making the interaction process extremely convenient and simple.
Actions and Blinks do not exist independently but rather have a symbiotic relationship. Actions form the foundation for Blinks, while Blinks serve as the concrete manifestation of Actions. Blinks abstract Actions in a way that makes them visible and accessible to users, allowing them to interact with Actions without even realizing they are doing so.
Advantages
Enhanced User Experience: With Blinks, users no longer need to leave their current page to navigate to the Dapp page they want to interact with. This provides a one-stop operation service, significantly reducing the steps and difficulty of user operations. It makes interacting with Web 3 as simple as clicking a link on Web 2.
Increased Traffic for Solana: When development teams on Solana utilize Blinks, the most notable effect is the ability to drive traffic to Solana across various social platforms. In the Web 3 world, projects need to attract more traffic to succeed in a competitive environment. Blinks can concretize various actions into different forms that can be shared across information exchange platforms like Twitter, Discord, and Telegram. This dissemination of Blinks will bring substantial traffic to Solana, promoting the growth of its ecosystem.
Lowered Barrier to Entry for Web 3 Users: Traditional Web 2 users often do not understand basic on-chain operations such as wallet authorization, signatures, on-chain transfers, and gas fees. To achieve rapid traffic diversion from traditional platforms, it is necessary to lower the operational threshold of the blockchain. With Blinks, each specific operation can be abstracted and aggregated into a URL. Users only need to click without understanding the underlying principles and processes of the operations, significantly lowering the entry barrier to Web 3.
Disadvantages
Increased Fraud Risk: Currently, Blinks can only be shared on Twitter, which is already a platform fraught with fraud. Prior to Blinks, scammers used high-fidelity websites or malware implants to deceive victims of their assets. With Blinks, the efficiency of fraud has significantly increased while reducing its costs. Scammers no longer need to develop high-fidelity websites; instead, they can achieve their goals with just an image and a link, making users vulnerable to deception.
Limited Coverage for Mobile Clients: Presently, the use of Blinks is restricted to desktop platforms. However, Twitter is predominantly accessed via mobile devices, with desktop usage relatively low. As a result, some investors question whether Blinks truly enhances Solana’s traffic as envisioned, viewing it as merely a gimmick used for price speculation.
ZK Compression
Definition
According to Solana’s official documentation, ZK Compression is a new foundational feature built on Solana that assists developers and users in constructing applications at scale. Developers and users have the option to compress on-chain states, significantly reducing state costs by several orders of magnitude, while maintaining the security, performance, and composability of Solana L1.
Technical Analysis
Across all blockchain projects, developers face two fundamental costs: computational costs and state costs. Minimizing these costs as much as possible addresses the entire chain’s gas fee issue, attracting more users and developers.
Solana addresses computational costs effectively with its hybrid consensus mechanism combining Proof of Stake (PoS) and Proof of History (PoH). By introducing a timestamp mechanism and utilizing multi-threaded parallel processing, Solana achieves high throughput and low transaction costs.
The emergence of ZK Compression (Zero-Knowledge Compression) effectively tackles the state cost issue. ZK Compression employs a process known as state compression, allowing developers to utilize Solana’s ledger space more economically by storing certain types of data off-chain rather than in more expensive on-chain accounts. ZK Compression hashes the off-chain data and stores its hash on-chain, verifying it using a state tree. This application significantly reduces the demand for on-chain storage space, thereby lowering costs and improving overall scalability.
Through the adoption of ZK Compression technology, the Solana ecosystem can efficiently handle large volumes of data and provide developers with more flexible storage options, driving the development and innovation of blockchain applications.
To simplify the analysis of ZK Compression:
- Compression: Refers to the compression step where on-chain accounts only store state roots. Base data is stored in a cheaper ledger under Solana’s chain, achieving the goal of reducing state storage costs.
- ZK (Zero-Knowledge): Indicates the protocol uses Zero-Knowledge technology to ensure the integrity of compressed states. Users and developers can obtain proof of validity from RPC providers supporting ZK Compression. Using ZK technology for on-chain and off-chain interactions is more reliable and faster than traditional OP (Operator) technology, ensuring Solana maintains its high computational speed without compromise.
Working Principle
ZK Compression operates similarly to Ethereum’s L2 Rollup:
- ZK Compression compresses each account’s data into a hash value, stored in the leaf nodes of a state tree. Each account hash includes both the account’s information and its position in the state tree, ensuring uniqueness for subsequent indexing.
- The state root of each state tree is stored on Solana’s mainnet. This state root acts as a fingerprint for the entire tree, allowing verification that all data within the tree is intact and unaltered.
- Detailed data of each account is not directly stored on Solana’s mainnet but is instead stored as invocation data in the more cost-effective Solana ledger space. The mainnet stores only the state roots and essential metadata, thus saving storage costs while ensuring data security. Additionally, ZK Compression utilizes zero-knowledge proofs to guarantee the integrity of compressed data without revealing specific content, providing proof of data authenticity and completeness.
Summary
Solana has introduced three major technological innovations — Actions, Blinks, and ZK Compression — in quick succession over the past two weeks, demonstrating its commitment to advancing faster and more efficient applications for public blockchains. These new technologies have not only expanded Solana’s utility from transactions to social interactions but also underscored Solana’s continuous innovation and ambition in blockchain technology.
At present, these three innovations are still in the testing phase, and their specific effects will only be fully understood after widespread adoption. However, judging from market performance, investors are optimistic about their prospects, highlighting Solana’s leadership in blockchain technology innovation.
