The Step Inbox is an integration with Dialect, a smart messaging protocol built on Solana. It allows users to engage in private wallet-to-wallet messaging within the Step dashboard. This guide will be a walkthrough on getting started with, and using the Step Inbox.
After you have connected your wallet to the Step Dashboard, locate the Inbox by clicking the Inbox button on the left of the page. From the Inbox page you will be able to compose and receive on-chain messages between other wallets.
To send your first message, first click the compose message icon from within the Inbox.
After clicking the compose message icon we can input the wallet address we would like to start a message thread with.
Similar to using DEXs and holding tokens within your wallet, sending on-chain messages requires a one-time SOL deposit to pay rent to Solana network validators. (See: Token Accounts on Step). The one-time deposit fee for starting each conversation is .058 SOL and can be reclaimed at any time. Reclaiming the rent deposit will also delete the message history from the Solana blockchain.
Apart from the rent fee when starting a conversation, sending messages is very cheap. The only cost is the Solana network fee for each message, usually around .00001 SOL which is less than 1c.
To create a message thread, enter the wallet address you wish to start a conversation with in the address bar and press the Create Thread button. This will prompt a transaction where you will pay the rent deposit to the Solana validators and create the message thread between the two wallets.
After confirming the transaction, we can now see our newly created message thread with the 8Vw3…FoyR wallet.
To send the first message of the conversation, type into the bottom bar and either hit ‘enter/return’ on your computer’s keyboard or press the arrow button at the end of the message bar. This will prompt another transaction, and the fee should only be around .00001 SOL.
After approving the transaction, our message now appears within the conversation. It has also been received by the other wallet and can be viewed from their Step Inbox as well. It is worth noting that only the wallet which initially starts the message thread is required to pay the one-time rent deposit.
The Inbox can host multiple conversations and has a variety of use cases. Some users might use the Inbox to reach out to wallets holding specific NFTs in order to arrange a trade or bargain a price for a private sale. Other users might use on-chain messaging for its censorship resistance, or possibly the pseudo anonymous aspects.
To retrieve your rent deposit from a conversation and delete message history, click the Settings icon at the top of the thread.
From the thread settings press “Withdraw rent & delete history” to prompt the wallet transaction and delete the message thread.
The “Withdraw rent & delete history” transaction shows the full refund of our initial ~.058 SOL deposit.
Approve the transaction in your wallet to remove the message thread and retrieve the rent deposit.
We can now see the message thread with G5n2…c3cb has been removed from our Inbox. The message history has been permanently deleted and will no longer be retrievable by anyone.
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