Understanding Solana's transaction anatomy

[MyrinNew]

📖 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







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.”

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