Web3 & Solana Onboarding for Developers — The Honest Path

“Build for people — not wallets. Great products don’t need to scream Web3. They just work.”

Most developers entering the Solana or Web3 space are sold a dream: full decentralization, wallet-only authentication, and unstoppable apps. But if you’ve ever actually built something beyond a toy project… you know the truth. We’re not there yet — and that’s okay.

This post is for developers who want to ship fast, build useful things, and keep users happy — without pretending Web3 is already perfect.

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The Web2.5 Reality (and Why It’s Fine)

Let’s be real: most apps in the Solana ecosystem are what we’d call Web2.5.

• Centralized frontends
• Off-chain logic
• On-chain interactions limited to a few key calls

And that’s exactly what users need right now. Full decentralization is the north star — but usability is how we get people on the ship.

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The Real Bottleneck: Friction

The biggest enemy of onboarding is friction.

• Wallet popups for every action
• Unclear messages like “sign this transaction” without context
• Mobile experiences that just break
• Phantom disconnecting mid-flow

It’s not about contracts — it’s about product experience.

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Tips to Reduce Wallet Pain

1. Progressive Onboarding

Let users explore the UI before connecting their wallet. Ask for a wallet only when it’s needed — at checkout, save, or submit points.

2. Session Signatures

Instead of making the user sign on every click, ask them to sign once and issue a temporary session token (stored in Redis or local memory). Use it to validate subsequent actions.

3. Solana Pay for Mobile UX

Solana Pay deep links make mobile wallet flows actually usable. It’s the closest we have to a native experience.

4. Handle Disconnects

Auto-connect is fragile. Make sure you support re-connect and give clear feedback when a wallet is missing or disconnected.

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Tooling Stack That Works

• @solana/wallet-adapter — for wallet support
• Fastify — minimal, fast backend for relayers / APIs
• Redis — for storing session tokens / payloads
• Tailwind + React/Svelte — fast UI with great DX
• Solana Actions and Solana Pay — for deterministic and standarized transactions

Keep it lean. Ship faster. Learn faster.

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Final Thought: UX First, Crypto Second

Web3 should be invisible. The best apps onboard users without them realizing they’re on-chain.

So instead of thinking “how do I Web3 this?”, ask:

• “What would the user expect here?”
• “Can I abstract this pain point?”
• “Does this really need to be on-chain?”

Crypto is a tool. UX is the product.

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Coming up next:
🧠 How to Abstract Wallet Integration and Create Seamless User Experiences in Web3