Glossary OS

Plain meaning

Start with the shortest useful explanation before going deeper.

A decentralized permanent storage protocol that uses a blockchain-like structure called the blockweave and a one-time upfront payment model (no recurring fees) to store data indefinitely, backed by an endowment mechanism. In the Solana ecosystem, Arweave is the dominant off-chain storage layer for NFT metadata JSON and media files, and is used by Metaplex's Bundlr/Irys integration to upload assets cheaply in bulk before minting, with URIs of the form ar://<txid> or https://arweave.net/<txid> stored in on-chain metadata accounts.

Mental model

Use the quick analogy first so the term is easier to reason about when you meet it in code, docs, or prompts.

Think of it as a building block that connects one definition to the larger Solana system around it.

Technical context

Place the term inside its Solana layer so the definition is easier to reason about.

RPCs, validators, snapshots, indexing, and network plumbing.

Why builders care

Turn the term from vocabulary into something operational for product and engineering work.

This term unlocks adjacent concepts quickly, so it works best when you treat it as a junction instead of an isolated definition.

AI handoff

Use this compact block when you want to give an agent or assistant grounded context without dumping the entire page.

Arweave (arweave)
Category: Infrastructure
Definition: A decentralized permanent storage protocol that uses a blockchain-like structure called the blockweave and a one-time upfront payment model (no recurring fees) to store data indefinitely, backed by an endowment mechanism. In the Solana ecosystem, Arweave is the dominant off-chain storage layer for NFT metadata JSON and media files, and is used by Metaplex's Bundlr/Irys integration to upload assets cheaply in bulk before minting, with URIs of the form ar://<txid> or https://arweave.net/<txid> stored in on-chain metadata accounts.
Related: Off-Chain Metadata (JSON), IPFS

Glossary Copilot

Ask grounded Solana questions without leaving the glossary.

Use glossary context, relationships, mental models, and builder paths to get structured answers instead of generic chat output.

Open full Copilot workspace

Question

Explain this code

Optional: paste Anchor, Solana, or Rust code so the Copilot can map primitives back to glossary terms.

Ask a glossary-grounded question

The Copilot will answer using the current term, related concepts, mental models, and the surrounding glossary graph.

Concept graph

See the term as part of a network, not a dead-end definition.

These branches show which concepts this term touches directly and what sits one layer beyond them.

Branch

Off-Chain Metadata (JSON)

The JSON file referenced by an NFT's metadata URI that contains the full description, image URL, attributes, and properties. Typically stored on Arweave (permanent, ~$0.01), IPFS/Filecoin, or Shadow Drive. The JSON schema follows the Metaplex standard: name, description, image, animation_url, attributes[], properties{files[], category}.

Token Metadata Standard

Open term

Branch

IPFS

A peer-to-peer hypermedia protocol that addresses content by cryptographic hash (CID) rather than location, so the same content always resolves to the same CID regardless of which node serves it. In Solana NFT contexts, IPFS is used as an alternative to Arweave for storing off-chain metadata and media, commonly accessed via pinning services like Pinata or NFT.Storage; however, content availability depends on active pinning, making it less permanent than Arweave's endowment model without a dedicated pinning arrangement.

Open term

Next concepts to explore

Keep the learning chain moving instead of stopping at one definition.

These are the next concepts worth opening if you want this term to make more sense inside a real Solana workflow.

Token Ecosystem

Off-Chain Metadata (JSON)

The JSON file referenced by an NFT's metadata URI that contains the full description, image URL, attributes, and properties. Typically stored on Arweave (permanent, ~$0.01), IPFS/Filecoin, or Shadow Drive. The JSON schema follows the Metaplex standard: name, description, image, animation_url, attributes[], properties{files[], category}.

Open term

Infrastructure

IPFS

A peer-to-peer hypermedia protocol that addresses content by cryptographic hash (CID) rather than location, so the same content always resolves to the same CID regardless of which node serves it. In Solana NFT contexts, IPFS is used as an alternative to Arweave for storing off-chain metadata and media, commonly accessed via pinning services like Pinata or NFT.Storage; however, content availability depends on active pinning, making it less permanent than Arweave's endowment model without a dedicated pinning arrangement.

Open term

Infrastructure

Blinks (Blockchain Links)

Client-side renderers and URL wrappers that convert Solana Actions endpoints into interactive, embeddable UI components — such as buttons, input fields, and transaction previews — that can appear inside wallets, browser extensions, and social media platforms without requiring users to navigate to a dApp. A Blink is essentially a URL prefixed with https://dial.to/?action= that signals to compatible clients to fetch and render the corresponding Action metadata, enabling one-click on-chain transactions from any webpage or feed.

Open term

Infrastructure

accountSubscribe

A WebSocket subscription method that pushes a notification to the client every time the data or lamport balance of a specified account changes, delivering the updated AccountInfo payload at the configured commitment level. It is commonly used by UIs to reactively update token balances, NFT ownership, or program state without polling, and each subscription is referenced by a numeric subscription ID returned upon successful registration.

Open term

Commonly confused with

Terms nearby in vocabulary, acronym, or conceptual neighborhood.

These entries are easy to mix up when you are reading quickly, prompting an LLM, or onboarding into a new layer of Solana.

Infrastructureaccount-subscribe

accountSubscribe

A WebSocket subscription method that pushes a notification to the client every time the data or lamport balance of a specified account changes, delivering the updated AccountInfo payload at the configured commitment level. It is commonly used by UIs to reactively update token balances, NFT ownership, or program state without polling, and each subscription is referenced by a numeric subscription ID returned upon successful registration.

Open term

Related terms

Follow the concepts that give this term its actual context.

Glossary entries become useful when they are connected. These links are the shortest path to adjacent ideas.

Token Ecosystemoff-chain-metadata

Off-Chain Metadata (JSON)

The JSON file referenced by an NFT's metadata URI that contains the full description, image URL, attributes, and properties. Typically stored on Arweave (permanent, ~$0.01), IPFS/Filecoin, or Shadow Drive. The JSON schema follows the Metaplex standard: name, description, image, animation_url, attributes[], properties{files[], category}.

Open term

Infrastructureipfs

IPFS

A peer-to-peer hypermedia protocol that addresses content by cryptographic hash (CID) rather than location, so the same content always resolves to the same CID regardless of which node serves it. In Solana NFT contexts, IPFS is used as an alternative to Arweave for storing off-chain metadata and media, commonly accessed via pinning services like Pinata or NFT.Storage; however, content availability depends on active pinning, making it less permanent than Arweave's endowment model without a dedicated pinning arrangement.

Open term

Stay in the same layer and keep building context.

These entries live beside the current term and help the page feel like part of a larger knowledge graph instead of a dead end.

Infrastructure

RPC (Remote Procedure Call)

The JSON-RPC 2.0 protocol interface through which clients communicate with Solana nodes to query chain state, submit transactions, and subscribe to events. Solana exposes a rich set of HTTP and WebSocket endpoints (e.g., getAccountInfo, sendTransaction) that abstract direct peer-to-peer network participation, making RPC the primary integration point for wallets, dApps, and indexers.

Open term

Infrastructure

RPC Node

A Solana full node that stores ledger state and serves JSON-RPC and WebSocket requests from clients without participating in consensus or voting. RPC nodes must replay every transaction to maintain an accurate account state database, and high-throughput deployments typically run dedicated RPC nodes with large SSDs, high RAM (256 GB+), and high-bandwidth network connections to handle concurrent client load without impacting validator performance.

Open term

Infrastructure

RPC Methods

The enumerated JSON-RPC endpoints exposed by Solana nodes, covering account queries (getAccountInfo, getMultipleAccounts, getProgramAccounts), block and transaction retrieval (getBlock, getTransaction), cluster metadata (getEpochInfo, getSlot, getVersion), and transaction submission (sendTransaction, simulateTransaction). Methods accept a Commitment parameter (processed, confirmed, finalized) to control the recency-vs-safety tradeoff of returned data.

Open term

Infrastructure

getAccountInfo

An RPC method that returns the complete on-chain state of a single account identified by its base-58 public key, including its lamport balance, owner program, executable flag, rent epoch, and raw data payload encoded as base64 or base58. It is the most fundamental read primitive in Solana development and is called at the specified commitment level, with the data field being null if the account does not exist.

Open term