You cannot control everything.
But with Solana, you become the god of the new world (or at least, the god of your own account).
I got into blockchain a few weeks ago out of pure curiosity. No grand plan, no roadmap, just a "why not?" and a rabbit hole I haven't been able to climb out of. Here's one thing I've picked up so far.
In Web2, you think you own your account. You've got a username, a password, maybe even two-factor auth, all the features that make you think you're in charge. But the company holding your data can lock you out, suspend you, delete you, or simply go under and take everything with them. And then you realize, you were just a tenant, not an owner. You were never really in control.
On Solana, that changes completely. When you create a Solana wallet, a keypair is generated: your public key and your private key. Your public key is your address. It's how the world knows where to find you on the chain. Your public key is also what makes Solana accounts work. Every account on the network is identified by one, whether it belongs to a person, a program, or a token. When someone sends you SOL, they're sending it to your public key. When a program needs to interact with your account, it references your public key. It's your permanent, verifiable presence on the chain. This is what makes it fundamentally different from Web2. There's no "forgot your username?" flow. No phone number on file. No company that can look you up and decide to remove you. Your public key exists on the blockchain, and the blockchain doesn't care who you are, only that you can prove you hold the key. That proof? That's your private key. Only the holder of the private key can restrict access and authorize transactions. If you hold the key, you hold the account, period.
One piece of advice though: Guard your private key like Gollum hoards The Ring. It really is your preciousssss.
I'm still learning, and this is far from the complete picture. But if there's one thing that stuck with me early, it's this: most systems are built to give you the feeling of control. Solana is one of the few built to give you the real thing.
