Account
A Solana account stores data at an address and has an owner program. The owner program controls changes to its data; accounts can also hold lamports.
Intermediate · SOURCE-LINKED DEFINITIONS
Solana glossary
Plain-language terms from this course. Reviewed 2026-09-30; check the linked docs for current protocol behavior.
Address
A 32-byte value used to identify an account. An address may come from a public key or be derived as a program-derived address.
Associated Token Account (ATA)
The deterministic token account conventionally derived for an owner and a token mint using the Associated Token Program. A wallet can own other token accounts too.
Canonical bump
The first bump value found by the standard PDA search that yields an off-curve address. Programs should validate the expected canonical derivation when uniqueness matters.
Program Derived Addresses ↗ Read: 7. Program-derived addresses →
Compute unit (CU)
A unit used to meter transaction execution work. A transaction can set a compute-unit limit and an optional prioritization price through the Compute Budget Program.
Cross-program invocation (CPI)
A call from one Solana program into another during transaction execution. The caller supplies the accounts; signer privilege can be forwarded or established for its own PDA with invoke-signed.
Cross-program invocation ↗ Read: 8. Cross-program calls and token authorities → Read: 12. Builder capstone: design and test a token escrow →
Instruction
A program call encoded in a transaction, with a program ID, account references, and instruction data. A transaction can contain multiple instructions.
Program-derived address (PDA)
A deterministic off-curve address derived from seeds, a bump, and a program ID. It has no private key; its deriving program can sign for it in a CPI with invoke-signed.
Program Derived Addresses ↗ Read: 7. Program-derived addresses → Read: 6. Programs and explicit account state →
Signer
An account whose required cryptographic signature is verified for a transaction. A program can also provide signer privilege for its own PDA during a CPI using invoke-signed.
Transactions ↗ Read: 8. Cross-program calls and token authorities →
Transaction
A signed message containing one or more instructions, a fee payer, and a recent blockhash or durable nonce. Validators execute it and return a status that should be checked on the intended cluster.