Solana Glossary
60+ Solana terms explained for developers.
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Account An account is the fundamental data unit on Solana, storing SOL balances, program state, or executable code. Address Lookup Table An address lookup table stores on-chain addresses that versioned transactions reference by index to save space. Agave Agave is the primary Solana validator client, maintained by Anza (formerly the Solana Labs validator codebase). Alpenglow Alpenglow is Solana's next-generation consensus protocol replacing Tower BFT with faster finality through Vouch and Roast phases. Anchor Anchor is a framework for building Solana programs in Rust with declarative account validation and automatic serialization. Archive Node An archive node stores the complete Solana ledger history, enabling queries for old blocks and transactions. ATA An ATA (Associated Token Account) is a deterministically derived token account address for a given wallet and mint.
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Base Fee The base fee is a fixed per-signature fee of 5,000 lamports charged on every Solana transaction. Blockhash A blockhash is a SHA-256 hash of a recently produced block, used to prevent transaction replay and set expiry. Bundle A bundle is a group of up to 5 Solana transactions submitted to Jito that execute atomically and in sequence.
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Commitment Commitment levels (processed, confirmed, finalized) describe how certain you can be that a transaction or state will not be rolled back. Compute Unit A compute unit (CU) measures how much processing a transaction requires. It determines priority fees and block capacity. Confirmed Confirmed is the commitment level where 66.7%+ of stake has voted on a block, making rollback unlikely. CPI CPI (Cross-Program Invocation) allows one Solana program to call another program's instructions within a transaction.
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Finality Finality is the point at which a transaction is irreversible. On Solana, finality takes ~12 seconds under Tower BFT. Finalized Finalized is the highest commitment level in Solana, indicating a block has reached maximum lockout and cannot be rolled back. Firedancer Firedancer is an independent Solana validator client built in C by Jump Crypto, designed for maximum throughput and reliability. Frankendancer Frankendancer is a hybrid validator client combining Firedancer's networking stack with Agave's execution engine.
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IDL An IDL (Interface Definition Language) is a JSON schema describing a Solana program's instructions, accounts, and types. Inflation Inflation is the rate at which new SOL is issued to fund staking rewards, starting at 8% and decreasing annually. Instruction An instruction is a single operation within a Solana transaction, specifying a program to call and the accounts to use.
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Lamport A lamport is the smallest unit of SOL — 1 SOL equals 1,000,000,000 lamports. Leader Schedule The leader schedule assigns validators to slots for block production, determined by stake at the start of each epoch. Liquid Staking Liquid staking lets you stake SOL and receive a tradeable token representing your staked position plus earned rewards.
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PDA A Program Derived Address (PDA) is a deterministic account address derived from a program ID and seeds, with no private key. Priority Fee A priority fee is an optional extra fee paid per compute unit to increase a transaction's scheduling priority. Processed Processed is the fastest commitment level in Solana, indicating the leader has processed the transaction in a block. Program A program is executable code deployed on-chain that processes instructions and modifies account state. Proof of History Proof of History is a cryptographic clock that provides a verifiable ordering of events without requiring consensus.
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Rent Rent is the cost of storing data on-chain. Accounts must hold enough SOL to be rent-exempt, or they are removed. Rent Exemption Rent exemption is the minimum lamport balance an account must hold to remain on-chain without being purged. Rotor Rotor is the block propagation protocol proposed for Alpenglow that improves on Turbine's data distribution. RPC Node An RPC node is a Solana validator configured to serve API requests from developers and applications.
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Sealevel Sealevel is Solana's parallel transaction execution engine that processes non-conflicting transactions simultaneously. Shred A shred is a small data packet that blocks are broken into for efficient propagation via Turbine. ShredStream ShredStream is Jito's service that delivers raw block data (shreds) to subscribers with minimal latency. Skip Rate Skip rate is the percentage of assigned leader slots where a validator failed to produce a block. Slot A slot is the time window during which a validator can produce a block on Solana. SPL Token SPL Token is the standard for fungible and non-fungible tokens on Solana, managed by the SPL Token Program. Stake Account A stake account holds SOL delegated to a validator for consensus participation and reward earning. SWQoS SWQoS (Stake-Weighted Quality of Service) prioritizes transaction ingestion from staked validators over unstaked sources.
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Tip A tip is a SOL payment to Jito validators for including a bundle in the block, separate from priority fees. Token-2022 Token-2022 is an upgraded token program with extensions for transfer fees, confidential transfers, and on-chain metadata. Tower BFT Tower BFT is Solana's consensus mechanism that uses Proof of History timestamps to reduce voting communication overhead. TPS TPS (Transactions Per Second) measures Solana's throughput, typically 2,000–4,000 for real user transactions. TPU TPU (Transaction Processing Unit) is the validator component that receives, verifies, and executes transactions. Transaction Landing Transaction landing rate is the percentage of submitted transactions that are successfully included in a block. Turbine Turbine is Solana's block propagation protocol that distributes block data across validators using a tree structure.
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Validator A validator is a node that participates in Solana consensus by voting on blocks and optionally producing them. Versioned Transaction A versioned transaction supports address lookup tables, allowing more accounts per transaction than legacy format. Vote Account A vote account records a validator's votes on blocks and tracks its commission rate and earned credits. Votor Votor is the consensus protocol proposed for Alpenglow that replaces Tower BFT with faster finality.