Forem: Hope

Victory Lap

Hope — Tue, 05 May 2026 04:23:59 +0000

I’ve been diving into Solana development for the past 10+ days as part of 100DaysOfSolana.

Today, I successfully moved my scripts into the browser to build a functional Devnet Dashboard. It was a great exercise in handling RPC providers and managing BigInt data for UI display.

Major shoutout to Major League Hacking for the challenge. Looking forward to the next arc!

My Second Week Building on Solana

Hope — Sun, 03 May 2026 15:11:52 +0000

I just finished my second week of the #100DaysOfSolana challenge, and my brain feels like it’s been rewired. Coming from a traditional software background, I thought a blockchain was just a slow database. I was wrong.

The "Aha!" Moment: Everything is an Account

The biggest thing that clicked for me this week was the Account Model. In the apps I usually build, data lives in a private database (like MongoDB) and the code lives on a server. On Solana, everything—your wallet, your data, and even the "smart contract" code—is an account sitting on a giant, public ledger.

What Surprised Me

I spent today comparing Solana accounts to traditional databases. Here are the three things that shocked me most:

Public by Default: I can take my wallet address, throw it into a website like the Solana Explorer, and see every single transaction I’ve ever made. There’s no "admin password" needed to see the data—it’s just there.
Rent is Real: You actually have to pay a small "security deposit" in SOL to store data on the blockchain. If you want to store more bytes, you pay more. The cool part? If you delete the data, you get your money back.
The "Ghost" Transaction: I learned the hard way that just because a website says "Success" doesn't mean your money has arrived yet. You have to wait for the network to "finalize" the transaction.

My Terminal Adventures

I spent a lot of time in the terminal this week. One of the most satisfying moments was finally seeing my balance update after a few failed airdrops:

# Checking my "identity" on the devnet
solana account $(solana address)

# The result:
Public Key: 5bsSMz6oc4gHp5BkBFSR9HK4mn7NBTimvsgSL9soXktj
Balance: 1.5 SOL
Owner: 11111111111111111111111111111111 (System Program)
Executable: false

What's Next?

I’m still wrapping my head around how different programs talk to each other without using "JOIN" commands like in SQL. It feels like learning to walk again, but in a world where everything is transparent and decentralized.

Next week, I’m diving deeper into building dashboards that read this data in real-time!

My Wallet Experiences

Hope — Sun, 26 Apr 2026 22:29:11 +0000

What I did: This week, I went from generating raw key pairs in the terminal to building a web app that connects to browser wallets like Phantom.

What surprised me: The biggest "aha" moment was realizing that a wallet is a UI for a cryptographic key pair that serves as my universal identity.

What's next: I'm excited to move past the basics and start writing my own on-chain programs!

How Identity Actually Works on Solana

Hope — Sun, 26 Apr 2026 22:14:51 +0000

Beyond Passwords: Understanding Identity on Solana

In the Web2 world, your identity is basically a row in a database owned by someone else. You have a username for GitHub and an email for Google. You rely on these companies to hash your password, handle forgotten password emails, and keep your data safe. On Solana, there are no databases or admins. Your identity is built on the keypair.

Think of it Like an SSH Key

If you’ve ever connected to a server using an SSH key, you already understand Solana. You generate a public key and a private key. You share the public one and keep the private one hidden. To prove who you are, you use the private key to sign a request.

On Solana, the entire network is the server. Your public key is your address, and your private key is your proof of ownership. To move money or talk to a smart contract, you just sign the request with that private key.

Why Addresses Look So Weird

Instead of a username, a Solana address looks like a long string of random characters. This string is encoded in Base58.

Solana uses Base58 to prevent human errors. It removes confusing characters that look alike, such as:

The number zero (0)
The capital letter O
The capital letter I
The lowercase letter l

This makes it much harder to make a mistake when you are copying or reading an address.

You Are the Only Boss

In Web2, a company can lock your account or get hacked. They own your data. You just have permission to use it. On Solana, ownership is cryptographic. Only the person holding the private key can make changes.

There is no password reset button. If you lose your private key, you lose your account forever. While that sounds scary, it also means no company or admin can ever block you or take your funds. You are in total control.

One Key for Everything

Because your identity is based on math, it works everywhere. You just connect your wallet, and every game, marketplace, or exchange on the network instantly knows it's you. It’s like having a universal passport that works across the entire internet without needing anyone's permission.