Juan David Nicholls
Open Source Contributor, Full-Stack Developer
Solana Core
I'm J.D. Nicholls 👋
- Open Source Contributor 👨💻
- Game developer (Hobby) 🎮
- Developer who loves UX 💫
- Chocolate lover 🍫
- Founding Full-Stack Engineer 👷
AT
Why Solana?
Solana has low gas fees, it's really fast...
Accounts
Smart contracts on Solana, referred to as "programs", are stateless - meaning they don't store anything except code. Everything happens in accounts, so they're central to Solana, they're used for storage, contracts, and for native blockchain programs.
The program itself doesn't hold a user's data. The program just talks to "accounts" that hold the user's data.
⬇️
Types of accounts
Data
These accounts store data:
- System owned accounts.
- PDA (Program derived address) accounts.
Program
These accounts store executable programs (AKA smart contracts).
Native
These accounts are for core blockchain functions like Stake, Vote, etc.
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Account Fields
| FIELD | DESCRIPTION |
|---|---|
| lamports | The # of lamports owned by this account |
| owner | The program owner of this account |
| executable | Whether this account can process instructions (is executable) |
| data | The raw data byte array stored by this account |
| rent_epoch | The next epoch that this account will owe rent |
Iamports are the smallest unit of Solana:
1 Iamport = 0.000000001 SOL
Iamports defines how much SOL the account has 💰
⬇️
Account Address
Smart contracts on Solana, referred to as "programs", are stateless - meaning they don't store anything except code. Everything happens in accounts, so they're central to Solana, they're used for storage, contracts, and for native blockchain programs.
Accounts
- Unique 256-bit address
- Hold some balance of SOL
- Can store arbitrary data
- Data storage is paid with Rent
- Anyone can credit SOL or read data
-
Only the account’s owner can debit SOL or modify data
{
key: number, // The address of the account
lamports: number, // Lamports currently held
data: Uint8Array, // Data stored in the account
is_executable: boolean, // Is this data a program?
owner: PublicKey, // The program with write access
}Programs
Smart contracts on Solana are called "programs";
A Solana program is just a piece of code that lives on the blockchain. The blockchain is a place where anyone can run code for a fee. The blockchain is being run by "miners", in the world of Solana we actually call them "validators".
Programs are:
- Special kind of account
- Data is eBPF bytecode
- Written in Rust, C/C++, Python
Deep in Programs
- Programs are stateless, they read & write data to other accounts. This allows programs to be executed in parallel.
- Must be the owner of an account to modify
- Programs process instructions
- Programs can send instructions to other programs
Program instructions
{
program_id: number, // The program this instruction is for
keys: Array<{
key: PublicKey,
is_mutable: boolean,
is_signer: boolean,
}>,
data: Uint8Array, // Data stored in the account
}Transactions
Transactions allows to send an instruction to a Solana program. Transactions send a package of "instructions" to an RPC client, which then forwards it to the network
- Programs are invoked by instructions.
- Instructions are sent via transactions.
- Transactions are atomic.
- Transactions must be signed.
{
message: {
instructions: Array<Instruction>,
recent_blockhash: number,
fee_payer: PublicKey,
...
},
signers: Array<Uint8Array>,
}NFTs
The Metadata Standard on Solana introduces countless ways to customize NFTs and the user’s experience.
- Are SPL Tokens
- Have 0 decimal places
- Have a total supply of 1
- Can have highly-customizable metadata
- A Collection is a NFT as well
Solana
By Juan David Nicholls
Solana
A brief presentation about Solana
