📖 Overview
For the past week, I’ve been reading data from the Solana blockchain. This project marks the shift from reading state to writing state. The goal was simple but fundamental: understand what actually happens when a transaction is sent on Solana.
🎯 Objective
- Send a real transaction on Solana Devnet
- Inspect it using CLI and Explorer
- Understand its internal structure
- Build a mental model for how state changes occur
⚙️ What I Did
1. Created a Temporary Wallet
Generated a fresh keypair to act as the recipient.
solana-keygen new --no-bip39-passphrase -o /tmp/temp-wallet.json
This generated a transaction signature, which acts as:
- A receipt
- The transaction ID
- The first cryptographic signature
Example:
2. Sent a Transaction
solana transfer --allow-unfunded-recipient $(solana address -k /tmp/temp-wallet.json) 0.001 --url devnet
Transferred a small amount of SOL on Devnet.
This produced a transaction signature (ID).
Example:
3. Inspected the Transaction via CLI
solana confirm -v <TRANSACTION_SIGNATURE>
This revealed:
- Transaction status and slot
- Accounts involved
- Instruction execution details
Example:
4. Analyzed in Explorer
Visualized It in Solana Explorer
Using the transaction signature, I examined:
- Signatures → Authorization proof
- Recent Blockhash → Freshness + anti-replay
- Account Keys → All accounts involved
- Instruction → System Program transfer
🧠Mental Model Upgrade
What you sent is not:
“Send 0.001 SOL to X”
It is:
“Execute instruction #2 of the System Program, using these accounts, with this encoded data, authorized by this signature.”
