Terminology glossary
Plain definitions for fields and concepts you encounter when reading Solana explorers. Terms link from our guides and workshop materials.
- Associated Token Account (ATA)
- A deterministic token account address derived from a wallet and mint pair. Explorers often show ATAs with a label linking them to the owner wallet.
- Commitment level
- The confirmation depth an explorer uses when displaying status — processed, confirmed, or finalized. Higher commitment means lower reorg risk.
- Compute units
- Measure of execution cost consumed by a transaction's instructions. Failed transactions may still consume partial compute before reverting.
- Cross-Program Invocation (CPI)
- When one on-chain program calls another during a single transaction. Inner instructions in explorers usually represent CPIs.
- Fee payer
- The account that pays the transaction's base fee and priority fee. Shown at the top of most explorer transaction pages.
- Inner instruction
- An instruction invoked by a program rather than listed in the transaction's outer instruction array. Essential for reading swaps and staking flows.
- Lamports
- The smallest unit of SOL. One SOL equals one billion lamports. Balance changes in explorers are often shown in both units.
- Mint
- The on-chain account defining a token type — supply, decimals, and mint authority. Distinct from any holder's token account.
- Program ID
- The public key of the executable program invoked by an instruction. Known programs may carry human-readable labels on explorers.
- Program Derived Address (PDA)
- An address without a private key, owned by a program. PDAs often hold pool state or vault balances in DeFi protocols.
- Rent exemption
- Minimum lamport balance an account must hold to remain on-chain without being garbage-collected. Closing an account can reclaim this balance.
- Signature
- Unique base58 identifier for a confirmed transaction. Used to look up any transaction on Solana explorers.
- Slot
- A unit of ledger progress. Each block occupies a slot; explorers show slot number alongside block time for context.
- Token account
- An account holding a balance of one specific mint. Wallets typically have separate token accounts per mint they hold.
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