Glossary Essentials
Key Solana and Web3 terms explained in plain English for new readers.
A reference guide for terms you will encounter while studying Solana. Definitions are simplified for clarity — consult official documentation for technical precision.
Account
A data storage location on Solana. Accounts hold SOL balances, program code, or application state. Every transaction specifies which accounts it reads from or writes to.
Block
A batch of transactions processed together. On Solana, blocks are produced approximately every 400 milliseconds.
Cluster
A set of validators working together to maintain a single ledger. Solana Mainnet Beta is the primary public cluster.
Delegation
The act of assigning your staked SOL to a validator so they can use your stake weight in consensus voting. You retain ownership of your tokens.
Epoch
A period of time (roughly 2–3 days) during which the validator set and stake distribution remain fixed. Rewards are distributed at epoch boundaries.
Lamport
The smallest unit of SOL. One SOL equals one billion (1,000,000,000) lamports.
Program
Solana’s term for on-chain code (equivalent to smart contracts on other networks). Programs are stateless; they read and write data stored in separate accounts.
Proof of History (PoH)
A cryptographic timestamping mechanism that creates a verifiable sequence of events, enabling validators to process transactions in parallel.
RPC (Remote Procedure Call)
An interface that applications use to communicate with the Solana network. Public RPC endpoints are available but may rate-limit heavy usage.
Seed phrase
A sequence of 12 or 24 words that generates your wallet’s private keys. Also called a recovery phrase or mnemonic.
SOL
The native token of the Solana network, used to pay transaction fees and for staking.
Stake
SOL tokens that have been delegated to a validator to participate in network consensus.
Transaction
A signed instruction that modifies account data on the blockchain. Each transaction costs a small fee paid in SOL.
Validator
A node that processes transactions, produces blocks, and participates in consensus voting on the Solana network.
Keep learning
These terms appear throughout our guides. Start with What is Solana? for context, or follow the full Learning Path.