I can’t remember the exact figures, but I remember having to pay around $5 for one transaction and I was disappointed.
For context, I was a third-world college student who had used his savings to buy magic internet money that was supposed to be the future of finance.
But it was slow and cost an arm and two legs.
Today, things are different.
Thanks to Solana, blockchain tech is financially accessible to people from all walks of life. In this guide, I’ll introduce you to Solana and give you everything you need to start experiencing the future of finance (for real this time.)
I understand you might not even know what a blockchain is so I’ll start with a brief overview of that. Here’s an outline of the topics we’ll cover:
A blockchain is fundamentally a distributed ledger.
Think of it as a book that lives on the internet. We use this book to record transactions. Four rules govern this book:
The book is publicly available.
Anyone can create a copy of it.
Anyone can update their copy and propose their updated copy to the entire network as the most current version.
If most of the network accepts their updated copy, it becomes the latest copy.
Now, I know this raises a million questions, first of which is probably “Why would anybody want that?”
Here’s the short answer: blockchains allow us to “replace trust with truth.”
Although blockchains are relatively new, the underlying philosophy has existed for ages.
Consider our governments, for example. The President might be in charge of the country, but he’s not directly in charge of the money. The Central Bank Governor is. This separation helps ensure transparency and accountability
Unfortunately, our current attempt at decentralization is limited because we have to trust a small number of people to keep each other in check.
You could request that the government be audited. But the outcome would look something like this:
Imagine how different our societies would be if several independent auditing firms publicly published how every tax dollar is spent in real-time.
That’s the concept of a blockchain.
Instead of trust, we have publicly available information that we’re sure is accurate (truth) because it’s been verified by multiple parties and most importantly, should we wish to, we can verify it ourselves.
Mind you, this isn’t some far-off theoretical scenario.
We can see every single Solana transaction since inception. And, should we wish to, we can re-verify that each transaction is true.
Using this system of publicly available truth for finance is just one use case.
The exciting thing about blockchains isn’t cryptocurrency or the absolutely ridiculous gains you can make from trading them. It’s in the ability to replace trust with truth.
I hope you’ve gotten an idea of what’s possible if some nerds are allowed to operate a public ledger.
This topic deserves its own article. But I’ll speedrun through it.
There are literally tens of thousands of blockchains floating around cyberspace. However, Solana is currently the cheapest, fastest, and most scalable blockchain that is both highly decentralized and battle-tested.
If you made it through that word salad, you’re probably more confused than ever. But as anti-blockchain as this may sound, I need you to trust me (for now).
As you become more familiar with the space, you’ll be able to form your own opinions. But these are the facts:
Solana currently has the highest throughput among blockchains: i.e., Solana processes more data per second than any other blockchain.
Solana doesn’t process more data because there’s more demand: It has high throughput because it’s fast.
Solana is very fast, even compared to centralized stuff like wire transfers. For reference, it takes about 400 milliseconds (0.4 seconds) for a Solana transaction to be added to the blockchain. Even though there are other things to factor in, a Solana transaction is several times faster than wire transfers.
Solana is also one of the cheapest blockchains (if not the absolute cheapest). A transfer (sending X amount of cryptocurrency) currently costs $0.000203 on Solana. Below is a chart showing other leading blockchains in comparison.
Average transaction costs in USD for the cheapest blockchains [1]
Solana is also extremely decentralized. This is great since decentralization is the whole point of blockchain tech. Two metrics are usually used to measure decentralization: Node count and Nakamoto co-efficient.
You’ll understand what these things mean in time, but in the meantime (pun intended), trust me when I say Solana is one of the most decentralized blockchains available.
So we’ve established that Solana is fast, cheap, and decentralized, but many blockchains also claim to be just that.
One key differentiator between Solana and those chains is that Solana has been through the fire. Solana has been stressed in the real world, and we know what it’s actually capable of. It has its flaws, but it’s the most performant blockchain available today.
But that’s not the best part.
The most exciting thing about Solana is it’s vision for a synchronized global state.
You might not think much of all that nerd gibberish. but you’ll probably resonate with the idea behind it:
Imagine being able to send emails, use social media, play games, buy and sell, trade assets, read news, and do everything you can do on today’s internet without having to register for anything, hand your data to Elon or any other big company, or worry about ever getting banned or censored. With no regional restrictions or anything of the sort.
A sort of global super-internet.
That’s what Solana is building.
Again, there are many blockchains trying for this, it’s Only Possible On Solana (OPOS.)
And that is a short summary of “Why Solana?”
With all that out of the way, let’s get to actually using the blockchain.
Getting Started with Solana
Getting a Wallet
The first thing you need to use a blockchain is a wallet.
A wallet is a digital folder that holds your private key.
Your private key is the single most important item in crypto. It’s how you prove ownership of your assets.
Anybody with your private key has full access to the assets associated with the public key.
Think of the private key as a password and your public key (or wallet address) as the account number.
You’ll almost never encounter it in this format. It’s usually encoded into something we call a seed phrase. A seed phrase is 12 words that don’t make a coherent sentence.
Here’s an example:
force industry ketchup tourist there execute history ill ignore imitate lift enforce
This is one I randomly generated for demonstration. Guard yours with your life.
Also, note that there is no account recovery on blockchains yet.. The reason?
For someone to recover your account, they need some form of control over it and that goes against blockchain ethos.
There’s ongoing research on a blockchain-aligned solution. But for now, if you lose your private key, nobody can help you. We’ll discuss how to ensure the safekeeping of your private keys later.
Ok, back to wallets.
Your wallet holds your private key and helps you construct signed transactions when you want to spend your assets or interact on-chain.
Anyone with your wallet address can send stuff to it, but only you (who has the private key) can send stuff out of it.
Types of Wallets
There are three types of wallets: soft wallets, hard wallets, and paper wallets.
All three wallets do the exact same thing. The primary difference between them is where they store your private key and how secure they are.
For your few on-chain interactions, a soft wallet will suffice.
This type of wallet stores your private key on your computer.
Let’s make one:
How to make your soft wallet.
Experts recommend using Phantom because it’s beginner-friendly. As time goes on, you might decide to switch.
To start, you download the phantom extension from the Chrome web store
After installing the extension, it should open automatically and show you this screen.
Click on “Create a new wallet”
Select a password to secure your wallet on this device. Note that this password doesn’t interact with the blockchain or protect you if your seed phrase is compromised.
You’ll find your seed phrase on the next screen.
Write it down somewhere secure, or keep it in an encrypted text document. Just make sure it’s safe.
I personally keep two copies written by hand on pieces of paper. One stored at my parent’s and one in a file with me. Feel free to keep yours anywhere you think is secure.
Next, you’ll take a short test to prove that you’ve backed up your seed phrase and voila, you’ve created your first wallet.
Open Phantom from the extensions menu and you can copy your wallet address.
First on-chain actions
Now that you’ve created a wallet, you can perform your first on-chain actions—sending and receiving cryptocurrency.
What you need to do now is find someone or some entity that is willing to exchange crypto for your local currency.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a large company, usually called a Centralized Exchange (CEX), or your friendly local neighbourhood dealer (I’m talking exclusively about crypto).
You just need to find a way to convert your local currency to on-chain currency.
For most people, the most accessible way is through a CEX.
If you’re in the US, you’re better off using Kraken or Coinbase.
Registration and KYC-ing are required for CEXs but the process will be effortless. The CEX will guide you on how to make your first crypto purchase and transfer.
The only thing you need to pay special attention to is that whenever you’re asked for a blockchain or token, you choose Solana and SOL, respectively.
After you’ve created your account and bought your first few tokens ($10 is enough), the next step is transferring your tokens to your wallet.
Making the transfer
The exact terminology will be different for different exchanges but look for something along the lines of "withdraw.”
You’ll be asked for a “destination address.”
Now, I cannot stress this enough, when you’re performing the transfer, copy your wallet address.
DO NOT manually type it out. Copy and paste it.
If you send anything to the wrong wallet, it is gone. Just like with your seed phrase, nobody can do anything about it. Pay attention!
If you’ve not made any mistakes, you should see an update on your Phantom balance in seconds.
And now, you’re finally ready to complete your first interaction.
Your first on-chain interaction
After receiving your tokens, you can send a very small amount back to your CEX wallet or to any wallet address of your choice.
Here’s one of my wallet addresses: 3qcXM99ndfwRZNyPw6SjuM4RokmJcpKXQJY4CtDLSsNU
You don’t have to do this step but you could just to experience Solana.
Start by opening the Phantom app.
Click “Send”
Click on Solana
Enter the destination address and amount. Send no more than (0.001 SOL). You’ll need the rest for other interactions.
If you’ve completed the send, congrats!
You’ve just experienced the power of Solana for the first time.
If you’re not in Nigeria, you just completed a cross-border transaction in less than a second.
If you wanted to do this conventionally (with an app like PayPal), you’d be hit with fees that are at least 4,926 times more expensive.
If you don’t feel excited, think about it this way:
You just performed a cross-border transfer to someone who’s probably on a different continent; you completed the transfer in less than a second and you paid less than a cent of a cent in fees.
You did all this without a bank and even if you come back in 300 years, you’ll still be able to track the transaction. And you don’t have to worry about Paypal ever banning your account for no reason.
You just experienced your first OPOS moment.
This is the power of a bunch of nerds constantly auditing a digital ledger.
Let’s move on to even more exciting things:
Swapping
Swapping is exactly what it sounds like, you convert from one (crypto)currency to another.
And I know I said more exciting but if you’ve ever tried foreign exchange, you’ll appreciate the process you’re about to experience.
The recommended wallet (Phantom) already has a swap function integrated into the wallet.
Follow these steps to perform a swap on Phantom.
Open the extension and find the swap button at the bottom of the interface.
The default is swapping Sol tokens for other tokens so leave it as is.
Click on Select token on the next screen
Click on USDC.
Sidebar: USDC is what we call a stablecoin i.e its price is pegged to something (usually fiat), in this case, it’s the USD.
Enter the amount of SOL you want to swap (anything between 0.001 and 0.1 is good) but keep some SOL for other interactions.
Click “Review Order” then “Swap” and in about 2 seconds, you should get this screen
And with that, you just completed your first swap.
Again, this might feel mundane. But if you’ve ever tried to convert between two currencies, you’ll appreciate that Solana lets you complete the swap in less than a second. Plus, you paid less than a cent in fees and you did all this without handing any ID to the blockchain and no government can ever stop you.
It’s mind-blowing, really.
If you’ve made it this far, congratulations. You’re no longer an absolute beginner, and your name (wallet address) has been literally etched in digital history. Future generations will look back and see that before it was cool, your address was using Solana.
Stick around, as I’ll take you through the more complicated stuff now.
dApps
A dApp is short for decentralized application.
It’s a program that lives on a blockchain and is executed by the blockchain's "Virtual Machine.”
It’s pretty complex, and discussing its nuances would fill up another article. But at its bones, a dApp is pretty similar to a normal app.
Think about watching YouTube.
Your phone sends a request to Google’s servers; they process the request and send you back the video.
A dApp is the exact same thing, except instead of Google, the “Solana Virtual Machine” does all the processing.
You probably don’t know this, but when you completed your first swap, you already used a dApp. It was just hidden away in the wallet.
If you’re curious as to why sending money doesn’t count as your first dApp usage, it’s because transferring cryptocurrency is built into the blockchain, so there’s no need for a dApp for that.
With the explanations out of the way, let’s look at a few key dApps.
DeFi dApps
DeFi stands for Decentralized Finance.
One of the points of crypto is that there are no central entities (like big banks) but we soon found out that we still kinda need banks. That’s where DeFi comes in.
DeFi allows you to enjoy all the functionality of a big bank without the big bank existing.
You probably guessed it but yes, there is once again a lot of nuance that I will be leaving out but you’ll learn all about it as you familiarize yourself with the space.
For now, we’ll look at just one DeFi dApp and its most important functionality.
Jupiter
Jupiter is what we call a DeFi aggregator. Don’t bother too much with the specifics; all it means is that Jupiter allows you to get the best prices on any transactions you perform through their platform.
As you can see from their homepage, there are currently five possible activities you can perform.
For now, we’ll focus on just one - Swapping.
And I know what you’re thinking: “ we already completed a swap, that Perpetual thing looks waaaay more interesting.”
While I would love to take you through more complex interactions, it’s important that you don’t let the space catdet, colorful neon, and cheap transaction fees make you forget that you’re spending actual money here.
When you understand how to navigate the blockchain, you’ll be free to do whatever you want.
They’re currently running a Lunar New Year celebration so the UI will probably be different when you’re using it.
Click on connect wallet in the top left and select Phantom
You should get a pop-up from the extension; click on Connect.
In the “You’re paying section” select USDC and in the “To receive” section, choose SOL.
(The exact opposite of our earlier transaction.)
Enter the amounts you wish to swap and click on Swap.
Approve the pop-up and in less than 2 seconds, you should get a confirmation.
(There’s a very small chance your transaction fails, just retry it.)
And with that, you just used a dApp.
You might feel like I’ve wasted your time but I showed this to you because it has all the fundamentals of a dApp interaction.
With this knowledge and a little grit, you’ll be able to use any dApp.
We’ll expand a little more on the basics in the next section:
NFTs
You’ve probably seen or heard of NFTs in one form of media or another.
Let’s just say their portrayal is usually less than flattering.
And while I can’t fully break down what NFTs are and why they’re not as stupid as they might seem, I’ll touch on it a little.
NFT stands for Non-Fungible Token.
That means a token that does not have duplicates of the same value.
A dollar has duplicates of the same value so if you tokenized dollars (those stablecoins I talked about earlier), they’d be fungible because the underlying asset is fungible.
An NFT is the blockchain tokenization of a non-fungible item.
Again so much is lost here because I don’t want to overload you with information but you can think of NFTs like deeds. Whoever owns the deed owns the house, no matter who’s living in it.
That’s basically what an NFT does: it helps to assert ownership of items on the blockchain.
And yes, I know it sounds stupid because a deed is enforced by the government and the blockchain cannot enforce anything in the real world.
On the top left side, you’ll find a connect wallet button similar to the one on Jupiter.
Confirm the connection and voila, you’re in.
With this, you can now browse through and buy any NFTs you can afford.
I strongly advise against actually buying anything for now but feel free to look around and get used to the marketplace.
At this point, you’re officially no longer a beginner.
You have most of what you need to survive on-chain.
There are a lot more dApps you can try but you don’t have to.
Here’s a quick rundown of a few that I find very helpful in my day to day use:
Lending and Borrowing
Let’s say you need some USDC but you only have SOL.
You don’t want to sell your SOL tokens because you think their price will go up. What do you do?
You take a loan.
I won’t get into details of how it works but yes, we figured out how to issue loans without banks.
You need to lock up some collateral and then you’ll be allowed to borrow against the locked up funds. But be careful that you don’t get liquidated.
If you’re feeling flush and you want your money to work for you, lending out your tokens returns interest. So you can earn just like you would using a conventional bank.
Overall, it’s not a very complex process; I just don’t recommend it for beginners because it usually involves some speculation. As you become more familiar with the market, you’ll know when it is for you.
Staking/Liquid Staking
The topic of staking can becomplex, but all you need to know for now, is that it’s another way to earn rewards.
You can access lending, borrowing, and liquid staking on MarginFi.
Bridging
This might not be intuitive but because of the way blockchains are designed, it’s very difficult to communicate with anything that’s “off-chain”. Be it a real world system or another blockchain.
That’s where bridges come in.
You can think of a bridge as a bridge.
It literally connects two blockchains and allows them to exchange information.
So if you ever need to move assets across blockchains, a bridge has you covered.
Trading is a complex activity and it more than deserves its own article.
But if you're an experienced trader and you were wondering if it’s possible to trade on-chain, the answer is yes.
Jupiter allows you to trade perps but Drift is a dApp dedicated solely to trading perpsso the experience is better.
For most people, this is all you’ll ever need.
There are a few other dApps and even real world stuff like DePINs and even fun stuff like on-chain casinos but I’ll let you find those yourself.
As we begin to wrap up this guide, let’s discuss how to interact with blockchains without losing everything.
Safe dApp Interaction
I already briefly talked about how one of the core tenets of blockchain is self-custody.
The problem with self-custody is responsibility. Any missteps can result in you losing everything so there are a few safety precautions you should always take:
Curate information carefully
This isn’t an on-chain thing but information is the lifeblood of crypto.
Crypto is currently the digital equivalent of the Wild West - there’s no regulation and scammers are everywhere.
We’ll discuss the best sources of information later but pay attention to the type of information you consume, even if it’s not directly related to money.
Anyone with .ada or .algo in their username should definitely be ignored on important topics.
Wallet Connection and Token Approval
You need to pay attention to Connections and Approvals.
Connecting your wallet to any dApp/website is harmless by itself so don’t panic even if you connect to a compromised website. Where trouble starts is when you sign anything.
Especially token approvals - “spending limits”.
I don’t want to get into the details but refrain from signing anything on a website you don’t trust. Best practice is not to wander to unsafe websites in the first place but definitely don’t sign or approve anything.
If you really want to try out the website, create a fresh wallet, send a very small amount of SOL to it and use that instead. We call it a burner wallet.
cNFT spam, malicious links and malware
The third way assets are lost in crypto is through phishing/compromised credentials.
Phishing is a scam where the attacker attempts to deceive people into giving up sensitive information or installing malware.
In the case of crypto, it’s literally anybody asking you for your seed phrase or someone asking you to click a link or download a file.
If you ever give up your seed phrase, kiss your funds goodbye.
Here’s a phishing attempt I shut down earlier this year.
He tried the reverse psychology tactic they’ve been employing recently.
I’m super proud that I flipped the script on bro.
Malware is a bit more complex; just be careful downloading anything from any websites you don’t trust.
On-chain spam/phishing links in the form of compressed NFTs (cNFTs) exist as well.
After a while, when you open your wallet, you’re bound to find a few NFTs that you didn’t buy. They usually promise stuff that’s too good to be true.
They’re the crypto equivalent of spam e-mail and the industry is working on filtering them. For now, don’t click on them; just ignore them.
One last bit of advice is, don’t keep everything in one wallet, especially not a soft wallet.
Always store your long term assets in a hard wallet, ideally multiple hard wallets.
If you follow these tips, you’ll lower your exposure to almost zero.
The best Beginner tools
I think the only tool worth bothering about as a beginner is Bonkbot.
Bonkbot is a telegram-based trading bot that helps you trade tokens on Solana.
The UI and UX are amazing, and they’re very intuitive.
You need not bother with any other tools or applications for now. As you find your stride, you’ll learn what tools are right for you.
Where to get Information on Solana
As I mentioned earlier, the most important currency on blockchains, aside from actual currency, is information.
The Web3 ecosystem is nascent, and many blockchains and projects are trying to assert dominance. To do this, many communities tell straight-up lies about others. Sometimes they don’t lie; they just make definitive statements on topics they don’t understand.
If you don’t curate your information carefully, you’ll end up confused or swept in whatever direction the loudest influencers are currently moving.
Lastly, information is important because of incentives.
As of this writing, the cryptocurrency industry is worth over two trillion dollars, with billions more pouring in daily. And because of crypto’s anonymity, insider trading is rampant.
To protect yourself from loss, ask yourself this question whenever anyone tries to sell you anything: “What’s in it for them?”
That said, these are the best sources of information on Solana. You can find these accounts on X (fka Twitter)
Anatoly Yakovenko (Solana cofounder, “tweets are mostly technical gibberish”)
Mert - Solana’s no. 1 manlet. He spends most of his time aggressively dispelling misinformation but it’s usually simple enough that beginners can understand.
Austin Federa - Head of Strategy at Solana. Highly technical content. For the geeks and nerds.
Justin Bons - Justin is an asset manager, I’m recommending him because he’s one of the few people in crypto who has shown that their opinions can change. He was very critical of Solana but has recently begun to 180. He seems very objective.
ZachXBT - Zach is just that guy, he’s basically Web3’s Batman, except he doesn’t physically beat people up.
Me - My old account got suspended for no reason (centralization sucks), but you can find me there.
If you follow all these accounts, you won’t get lost.
But always remember that any of these people or accounts could be compromised digitally or financially. If it’s too good to be true, it probably isn’t.
At this point, you have all you need to succeed. I wish you good luck on your Solana journey.
You've got a keen interest in SOL lol.
It's great, Seems less like a complete guide to Solana and more like A Quick Guide to Solana, the Cryptospace and Blockchains