What do you think: Should we push Ink or move with solidity?

Ecosystem
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[Reposting after accidentally deleting the original.]

TL;DR

  • ink! has serious potential for the Polkadot ecosystem, but adoption is low.
  • It offers speed, security, and async-native design, but struggles with tooling and visibility.
  • Let’s talk about how we can push it forward and make it a first-class smart contract language.

ink! is Polkadot’s native smart contract language, built in Rust and compiled to WebAssembly. It’s powerful, secure, and tightly integrated into the Polkadot ecosystem.

But let’s be honest — for most developers, ink! still isn’t a mainstream choice.

Meanwhile, Solidity dominates the Web3 space with its huge developer base, mature tooling, and wide adoption. So, how can ink! catch up and possibly go beyond?

I believe Ink! doesn’t need to replace Solidity.

Instead, it should position itself as the better long-term choice for serious Web3 builders. But that requires effort from the community, the ecosystem teams, and the developer tooling space.

Here’s a breakdown of why ink! is worth pushing and how we can actually do it.

Why ink! Deserves a Bigger Role

  1. Speed and Security
  • ink! compiles to WebAssembly, which is faster and more efficient.
  • Built on Rust, ink! benefits from a strong type system and memory safety, leading to fewer vulnerabilities.
  1. Tightly Integrated with Polkadot
  • ink! contracts can interact with pallets, access native staking and governance mechanisms, and use cross-chain messaging via XCM.
  • It’s designed from the ground up for the Polkadot ecosystem.
  1. Async and Multi-Chain Friendly
  • Unlike Solidity, ink! can support asynchronous execution and cross-chain logic natively.
  • This is a major advantage as Polkadot moves toward a multi-core, elastic scaling future.
  1. Built for Long-Term Composability
  • ink! contracts are modular and extensible. Developers can create complex systems that go beyond the simple app logic.

What’s Holding ink! Back?

  1. Rust Learning Curve
  • Rust is a powerful but complex language, especially for devs coming from JavaScript or Python.
  • But here’s the thing - Solana uses Rust too, and they’ve succeeded in onboarding thousands of developers. So this is a solvable problem, not an excuse.
  1. Tooling Gaps
  • cargo-contract works, but it’s not as beginner-friendly or powerful as Hardhat or Foundry.
  • Testing, debugging, deployment, and simulations still need to improve.
  1. Lack of Ecosystem Libraries
  • Solidity devs have access to OpenZeppelin, Chainlink, and countless verified templates.
  • ink! needs a similar ecosystem of plug-and-play components.
  1. Poor Visibility
  • Very few public case studies or flagship apps using ink!.
  • Many Polkadot developers don’t even consider ink! when building.

How We Can Push ink! Forward

  1. Improve Dev Experience
  • Invest in better tools like debuggers, gas analyzers, and live testnets.
  • Create easy-to-use starter kits (scaffold-ink, create-ink-app).
  • Launch a browser-based IDE (like Remix) for ink! with templates and deploy buttons.
  1. Build Ecosystem Libraries
  • Fund the development of common ink! modules (e.g. token standards, DEX contracts, DAOs).
  • Port popular Solidity contracts to ink! with testing and docs.
  1. Make Learning Easy
  • Publish guides like “Solidity to ink! for Beginners” or “ERC-20 in ink!”.
  • Run workshops and tutorials targeted at Solidity devs.
  • Create short YouTube series, Twitter threads, and GitHub examples.
  1. Highlight Real Projects
  • Feature teams building real apps with ink! and how it helped them.
  • Turn successful stories into content: blogs, videos, talks.
  1. Run ink!-Focused Grants & Hackathons
  • Offer funding and visibility for ink!-only dApps.
  • Include ink! in every Polkadot hackathon, with mentorship and beginner tracks.

Tools and Initiatives Available for ink! Today

  • Ink!ubator: a bounty program to further the ink! smart contracting ecosystem.

  • Pop CLI: Alternative to cargo-contract.

  • ink!athon: A full-stack boilerplate for ink! smart contracts with frontend integration.

  • VS Code Extension (ink! Analyzer): Created by David Semakula, offers inline diagnostics, quick fixes, autocompletions, and inline documentation for ink!.

  • zink!: A macro library that simplifies ink! development and reduces boilerplate code.

  • use-inkathon: A React hook and utility toolkit to interact with Substrate-based networks and ink! smart contracts from your frontend.

  • DRink!: Developed by Aleph Zero, it allows full local contract development without a running node.

Long-Term Vision

The future of smart contracts is multi-chain, parallel, and high-performance, all areas where ink! shines.

Ink! can power the next generation of Web3:

  • async dApps
  • trust-minimized bridges
  • cross-chain DAOs
  • interoperable games
  • modular identity frameworks

To get there, we need to invest now in developer tools, content, and community. We don’t need to replace Solidity. We need to show that ink! is a better option for those who want to build faster, more secure, and future-ready smart contracts.

By investing in better tools, education, and awareness, we can help ink! reach the level of adoption it truly deserves.

This is not just about developer choice. It’s about building the kind of smart contract ecosystem that Polkadot was designed for.

Who Am I?

I’m Abinash, and I’ve been building Web3 products since around 2021–2022. I’ve worked with Solidity on EVM, Rust on Solana, and ink! on Polkadot, building everything from consumer apps to developer tools.

Current Project:

Let’s make ink! a first-class citizen of the Web3 world. Not as a niche language, but as the go-to choice for serious builders in the Polkadot ecosystem and beyond.

I’d love to hear your thoughts:
Have you tried ink!? What helped? What held you back?
What tools, tutorials, or libraries do you think we need most?

Thank you for your time.

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2

Hey Abinash, thanks for opening this discussion, we fully agree with you. At R0GUE we are deeply aligned with the need to push ink! forward, not as a replacement for Solidity, but as a core pillar of Polkadot’s long-term identity that should coexist alongside it and enhance the experience for Solidity developers.

Supporting Solidity on Polkadot is primarily about onboarding existing developers and porting dApps from other ecosystems. But on its own it doesn’t offer those developers much they can’t already find on any number of L1s or L2s out there. And in practice, developers aren’t choosing platforms based on decentralization ideals, they’re choosing what’s fastest, most familiar, or enables them to build something they can’t elsewhere.

Without differentiated features or meaningful new capabilities, Solidity on Polkadot risks being just another EVM among many. That doesn’t mean it’s unimportant, quite the opposite. If we want to be competitive, we must offer the primitives and integrations developers expect, including things like Chainlink support, ERC-based standards, and ecosystem liquidity. Without these, meaningful traction will remain out of reach.

But ink! offers something entirely different, and deeply strategic.

It provides a natural, compelling path for the global Rust developer base, one of the most talented and principled developer communities, to enter Web3 through a toolchain that aligns with how they already think: safety, control, composability, and performance. As you noted, Solana has shown strong results here. The ink! opportunity isn’t in convincing Solidity devs to switch paradigms, it’s in empowering Rust developers to build Web3 systems from the ground up.

That’s not just theory. We’ve seen it play out in practice. At the Web3 Summit hackathon in July, ink! was used to build real dApps. While the developer experience wasn’t (and isn’t) yet perfect, the demand and creativity were undeniable, and with clearer onboarding, and continued investment in tooling, we can unlock even more adoption.

We strongly support a dual-track strategy for Asset Hub: onboarding developers via both Solidity and ink!. This provides optionality and a larger pool to onboard developers from, but more importantly, it enables new cross-contract patterns where ink! powers the low-level primitives and Solidity can compose them. ink! isn’t just another language, it’s middleware for multichain innovation.

But here’s the catch: none of this will matter unless ink! becomes more visible.

No matter how strong the tooling or how compelling the value proposition, if builders don’t see ink! clearly signposted as a first-class option when approaching Polkadot, they won’t choose it. It requires full ecosystem support.

We need to actively support ink! through content, visibility, tooling, education, and real-world examples. When someone asks, “What can I build on Polkadot?” The answer should point clearly to not only Solidity but also ink!. Not as an afterthought, but as a powerful, modern, production-ready choice for serious builders.

This is where the community comes in.

If we want ink! to thrive, and for Polkadot to offer something truly different, we need to support it visibly and vocally. That means:

  • Featuring ink! in hackathons and grants

  • Publishing real-world examples and contract libraries

  • Improving documentation and onboarding flows

  • Funding core tooling

And clearly signaling, across the ecosystem, that ink! is not an afterthought, it’s a strategic, production-ready, ecosystem-aligned choice for serious builders.

When someone asks, “What can I build on Polkadot?”, the answer shouldn’t be just “EVM-compatible dApps.” It should be: “Solidity or ink!, with extensive education resources, refined tooling, and the most powerful composable cross-chain features in Web3”.

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Thanks, @_rich this part really stood out to me:

“But on its own it doesn’t offer those developers much they can’t already find on any number of L1s or L2s out there.”

This is such an important point.

Just adding Solidity support won’t automatically bring builders to Polkadot. Most EVM-compatible chains already offer mature tooling and liquidity, so Polkadot has to offer something different, something that can’t be easily found elsewhere.

And that’s exactly where ink! has a unique opportunity.

Look at Solana, Aptos, or Sui; none of them support Solidity, yet they’ve managed to build strong ecosystems, not because of compatibility, but because of their distinct developer experience and capabilities.

Similarly, ink! can be Polkadot’s differentiator, not just an alternative language, but a smarter path for building multichain-native, performant, secure dApps.

What I’m Doing Personally

As someone passionate about both Rust and ink!, I’ve been putting consistent effort into growing awareness and education around the Polkadot ecosystem.

YouTube & Twitch

I’ve started doing livestreams and content on both YouTube and Twitch to explain the foundations of Polkadot, its architecture, network design, and ecosystem overview. (Laying the groundwork.)

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@implabinash

Twitch: Twitch

Coming Soon: Builder Phase

Once the ecosystem basics are covered, I’ll be moving into hands-on builder content, including:

  • How to get started with Ink!

  • Writing smart contracts with Ink!

  • Developing real-world contracts:

    • DeFi protocols

    • Governance contracts

    • General-purpose dApps

  • Deployment tutorials (testnet & mainnet)

  • Full-stack dApp development using ink! (frontend + backend integration)

Ecosystem Contributions

I’ve also started working on small developer tools for Ink! and plan to open-source them soon.

I can’t promise these efforts will single-handedly move adoption, but what I can promise is consistent effort, and I’m here to build, educate, and promote Ink! or Polkadot in general to the best of my ability.

A Few Ideas for Community Strategy

While I’m working on what I can as an individual, I also believe we need a community-wide push. And that includes both supply-side and demand-side efforts:

Supply Side (Growing Resources)

  • Beginner-friendly tutorials, blogs, and docs

  • Cheat sheets and quickstart kits

  • Open-source, audited ink! contracts

  • Reusable modules and patterns (e.g., token standards, governance templates)

  • “Solidity → ink!” migration guides

Demand Side (Growing Visibility & Motivation)

  • Share success stories from real ink! builders

  • Run interviews, podcasts, or Twitter Spaces with ink! developers

  • Highlight successful ink! projects and what problems they solved

  • Highlight unique ink! advantages (async, XCM, composability) that are hard or impossible in Solidity

  • Build popular dApp clones (like Uniswap/Aave) in ink! and show what they can get if they choose Ink!

  • Create comparisons that show what developers might miss out on by not choosing Ink!

These are just ideas, many of them can’t be done by one person, but together as a community, with support from ecosystem teams, we can make it happen.

Final Thoughts

If we want ink! to thrive, it’s not enough to have it as an option; we need to actively show what’s possible, make it easy to build, and make developers feel excited about choosing it.

Let’s make the answer to “What can I build on Polkadot?” not just “EVM-compatible dApps,” but also:

“You can build next-gen, secure, async, multichain-native dApps with ink!, and here’s exactly how.”

With the right focus and community support, ink! can become one of the most powerful toolchains in Web3.

Thank you,
Abinash

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