fundamentals · beginner
What is Solana?
A clear introduction to Solana — the high-performance blockchain designed for global, low-cost transactions.
Quick summary
- 01Solana is a Layer 1 blockchain optimized for speed and low fees.
- 02It uses Proof of History plus Proof of Stake to order events at scale.
- 03Validators take turns producing blocks roughly every 400 milliseconds.
- 04All state lives in 'accounts'; logic lives in 'programs'.
- 05Fees are typically a fraction of a cent.
What you'll learn
- What Solana actually is, in plain terms.
- Why it was built the way it was.
- How it differs from other blockchains at a high level.
- The vocabulary you'll need for the rest of this curriculum.
Solana is a public, high-performance blockchain. It is designed to settle a very large number of transactions per second at a very low cost — without giving up on having a single, globally-consistent state that any participant can verify.
You can think of Solana as a shared computer, run by thousands of independent operators (called validators), that anyone in the world can read from or write to. The validators take turns adding new entries to a single, ordered ledger.
The core idea
Most blockchains spend a lot of time agreeing on the order of events. Solana's key insight, called Proof of History, is to produce a verifiable clock first — a cryptographic record of "this happened before that" — and then have validators vote on top of it. Because everyone already agrees on order, consensus is much faster.
The Solana stack at a glance
Wallets, dApps and services interact via transactions.
Stateless on-chain code that processes instructions.
Where every piece of state actually lives.
Run the network, produce blocks, and vote.
What you actually use
As a user, you interact with Solana through a wallet. The wallet holds your keys, signs your transactions, and lets you call programs — to send SOL, stake to a validator, swap tokens, or mint an NFT. Everything you do becomes a transaction touching a small set of accounts.
Why it matters
Solana's combination of speed, low fees, and a single global state makes it well-suited to consumer applications, payments, and high-throughput DeFi. Whether those properties matter for your use case is a separate question — but they are real, and they shape every other design decision in the ecosystem.
Key takeaways
- →Solana is a Layer 1 blockchain optimized for high throughput and low fees.
- →Proof of History gives validators an agreed-upon ordering of events, which makes consensus fast.
- →Everything is an account; programs hold logic, accounts hold state.
- →Users interact with Solana through wallets that sign transactions.
Frequently asked questions
Is Solana a Layer 2?
No. Solana is a Layer 1 — it has its own consensus and settlement. It is not built on top of another chain.
How is Solana so fast?
Two reasons: Proof of History gives validators a shared clock, and the runtime executes non-overlapping transactions in parallel.
What is SOL used for?
SOL pays transaction fees, is staked to validators, and is the unit of account for rent and many on-chain operations.
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