Solana Name Service Adds On-Chain Messaging

Published on: 22.10.2021

Bonfida is excited to announce the launch of the new On-Chain Messaging Service that is now available on the Solana Name Service (SNS).

On-Chain messaging allows users to send encrypted messages to .SOL Domain Names.

Messages are not only limited to text you can also include audio, pictures, or video.

This is a first for this type of implementation on ANY blockchain!

How are on-chain messages encrypted?

All messages are encrypted end to end (E2EE) using Diffie-Hellman The encryption happens in your browser before sending the message on-chain. This means that all the data sent on-chain is always encrypted and only the receiver can decrypt the message.

All media sent via the messaging app are also encrypted using Diffie-Hellman, however, the media itself is not on-chain, it’s uploaded on IPFS and only the hash is sent via the on-chain messaging app, the flow is slightly different:

Encrypt media
Upload encrypted media on IPFS (IPFS returns a hash)
Send a message that contains the hash (also encrypted)

What does it mean for the Solana Ecosystem?

There is no doubt that the implementation of on-chain messaging opens a vast amount of possibilities for dAPP’s to be integrated into the Solana Name Service.

On-chain messaging is modular meaning other protocols can integrate it to their front-end. This means that on-chain messaging can be integrated into many different types of products, from influencers wanting to communicate with their fans, to dating applications or to exchanging services.

There are an endless amount of possibilities that on-chain messaging can be utilized.

How much would it cost to use:

Once you have a Solana Domain Name associated with your wallet, you just need to hold an adequate amount of SOL and you are ready to start sending messages.

The only fees associated with the messaging service are transactional costs associated with processing any transaction over the blockchain.

Transactional costs start at approximately 0.0015 SOL. The total cost is determined by the total number of characters you use in your message.

Sending audio, images, or video by message is cheap because the contents are uploaded on IPFS and the hash is sent by message.

Below is a predictive table for estimating the cost of a message.