Curriculum
Structured paths through the Solana ecosystem
Four learning paths covering everything from your first wallet to validator economics. Pick a starting point — or follow them in order.
beginner · ~3 hours
Beginner Foundations
Understand Solana from zero — wallets, transactions, staking, and security.
What is Solana?
A clear introduction to Solana — the high-performance blockchain designed for global, low-cost transactions.
What makes Solana different?
Proof of History, parallel execution, and a single global state — what they really mean.
What is a Solana wallet?
A wallet doesn't hold your coins — it holds your keys. Here's what that actually means.
How to set up a wallet safely
A step-by-step procedure that prevents the most common — and most expensive — mistakes.
Sending and receiving SOL
What actually happens when you click send — addresses, signatures, and confirmations.
Understanding fees and transactions
Base fees, priority fees, and why Solana fees stay low even under load.
How Solana transactions work
From a signed payload to a confirmed slot — the full lifecycle, end to end.
What is staking?
How delegating SOL to a validator helps secure the network — and what you earn for it.
How validators work
Validators run the network. Here's what they actually do during each slot.
What are tokens on Solana?
SPL tokens, mints, and accounts — the universal building block on Solana.
How NFTs work on Solana
Why an NFT is just a token with a supply of one — and what changes with compression.
Solana security basics
The security mindset that protects beginners from 90% of real-world losses.
intermediate · ~2.5 hours
User & Investor Track
Evaluate wallets, tokens, DeFi and NFTs with a clear, risk-aware framework.
Common beginner mistakes (and how to avoid them)
The same handful of mistakes account for most beginner losses. Here's the list.
How to evaluate a Solana wallet
A practical checklist for choosing a wallet you can actually trust.
How to understand token risk
A reading framework for any token — supply, authority, liquidity, and holders.
How to use Solana explorers
Read transactions, accounts and tokens directly from the chain — no middleman.
How to read transaction activity
Decode account changes, instructions and signers like a pro.
What to know before staking
Validator selection, warmup/cooldown, and the actual mechanics of yield.
Basic DeFi concepts on Solana
AMMs, liquidity, lending and the real building blocks of on-chain finance.
Stablecoins on Solana
USDC, USDT, and the design space of dollar-denominated value on Solana.
NFT collections and risks
Collection verification, royalties, compression — and what to actually watch.
How to avoid scams and phishing
The high-leverage habits that block almost every common attack.
intermediate · ~4 hours
Builder & Developer Track
Accounts, programs, PDAs, CPIs and the Solana programming model.
Solana accounts explained
Everything on Solana is an account. Here's the model that ties it all together.
Programs explained
Programs are stateless. Their state lives in accounts. That changes everything.
PDAs explained
Program Derived Addresses — the deterministic accounts a program controls.
Transactions and instructions
Instructions compose into transactions. Transactions are atomic.
Cross-program invocations (CPIs)
How one program calls another — and why composability is Solana's superpower.
Token Program basics
The SPL Token program is the universal token standard on Solana.
Token-2022 basics
Token Extensions add transfer hooks, fees, confidential transfers and more.
Solana tooling overview
The CLI, Anchor, web3.js and the rest of the stack at a glance.
Solana Cookbook — guide map
A curated map of recipes every Solana builder should know.
Beginner path for building on Solana
A concrete sequence to go from zero to your first deployed program.
advanced · ~3 hours
Advanced Ecosystem
Validator economics, network architecture and ecosystem infrastructure.
Validator economics
Vote costs, MEV, commission and the real economics of running a validator.
Network architecture overview
Leaders, voters, gossip, Turbine — how Solana actually moves data.
Compute budget concepts
Compute units, priority fees, and the economics of block space.
Ecosystem infrastructure landscape
RPC providers, indexers, oracles — the infrastructure layer at a glance.
Payments on Solana
Why Solana is well-suited for payments — settlement, fees, and stablecoin rails.
Consumer apps ecosystem
Wallet-first UX, mobile-first apps, and the consumer surface of Solana.
Governance and ecosystem structure
How decisions get made — the foundation, validators, and the broader ecosystem.
Security and operational risk
Smart contract risk, infrastructure risk, and operational discipline.