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Infrastructure

gRPC

A high-performance, open-source remote procedure call framework from Google that uses HTTP/2 for transport and Protocol Buffers (Protobuf) for binary serialization, offering lower latency, smaller message sizes, and bidirectional streaming compared to JSON-RPC over HTTP/1.1. In Solana infrastructure, gRPC is most prominent as the transport layer for Yellowstone, allowing clients to open long-lived streaming subscriptions with server-side filtering while consuming far less bandwidth than equivalent WebSocket subscriptions.

IDgrpc
Plain meaning

Plain meaning

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A high-performance, open-source remote procedure call framework from Google that uses HTTP/2 for transport and Protocol Buffers (Protobuf) for binary serialization, offering lower latency, smaller message sizes, and bidirectional streaming compared to JSON-RPC over HTTP/1.1. In Solana infrastructure, gRPC is most prominent as the transport layer for Yellowstone, allowing clients to open long-lived streaming subscriptions with server-side filtering while consuming far less bandwidth than equivalent WebSocket subscriptions.

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Technical context

Technical context

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

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gRPC (grpc)
Category: Infrastructure
Definition: A high-performance, open-source remote procedure call framework from Google that uses HTTP/2 for transport and Protocol Buffers (Protobuf) for binary serialization, offering lower latency, smaller message sizes, and bidirectional streaming compared to JSON-RPC over HTTP/1.1. In Solana infrastructure, gRPC is most prominent as the transport layer for Yellowstone, allowing clients to open long-lived streaming subscriptions with server-side filtering while consuming far less bandwidth than equivalent WebSocket subscriptions.
Related: Yellowstone gRPC, Geyser Plugin
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Yellowstone gRPC

An open-source Geyser plugin implementation by Triton One that re-exposes the validator's internal event stream over a gRPC/Protobuf interface, enabling clients to subscribe to filtered streams of account updates, transactions, and slot notifications with sub-millisecond latency from the validator. It has become the de facto streaming standard for Solana MEV bots, high-frequency trading systems, and indexers that require lower latency and richer filtering than WebSocket subscriptions provide.

Open term
Branch

Geyser Plugin

A Solana validator plugin interface (defined in solana-geyser-plugin-interface) that allows external processes to receive a real-time stream of every account update, transaction, slot status change, and block notification directly from the validator's internal processing pipeline via shared-memory callbacks, bypassing the RPC layer entirely. Geyser is the foundation for high-performance indexers, custom databases, and streaming infrastructure like Yellowstone gRPC, because it delivers data at validator speed with zero polling overhead.

ValidatorIndexer
Open term
Next concepts to explore

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Infrastructure

Yellowstone gRPC

An open-source Geyser plugin implementation by Triton One that re-exposes the validator's internal event stream over a gRPC/Protobuf interface, enabling clients to subscribe to filtered streams of account updates, transactions, and slot notifications with sub-millisecond latency from the validator. It has become the de facto streaming standard for Solana MEV bots, high-frequency trading systems, and indexers that require lower latency and richer filtering than WebSocket subscriptions provide.

Open term
Infrastructure

Geyser Plugin

A Solana validator plugin interface (defined in solana-geyser-plugin-interface) that allows external processes to receive a real-time stream of every account update, transaction, slot status change, and block notification directly from the validator's internal processing pipeline via shared-memory callbacks, bypassing the RPC layer entirely. Geyser is the foundation for high-performance indexers, custom databases, and streaming infrastructure like Yellowstone gRPC, because it delivers data at validator speed with zero polling overhead.

Open term
Infrastructure

Helius

A Solana-focused infrastructure provider offering dedicated RPC nodes, DAS API access, Geyser-based webhooks, the LaserStream ultra-low-latency streaming product, and enhanced transaction parsing APIs that decode raw instruction data into human-readable event objects. Helius is widely used by developers for its generous free tier, Solana-specific tooling (NFT APIs, token metadata enrichment), and reliable globally distributed RPC endpoints.

Open term
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
Commonly confused with

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Infrastructureget-account-info

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
Infrastructureget-latest-blockhash

getLatestBlockhash

A Solana RPC method that returns the most recent blockhash along with the last valid block height for that blockhash, providing the two values needed to build and submit a transaction. Every Solana transaction must include a recent blockhash to prevent replay attacks; this method is typically called immediately before signing. The returned lastValidBlockHeight indicates when the blockhash expires, after which unsigned transactions using it will be rejected.

Open term
Infrastructureget-multiple-accounts

getMultipleAccounts

A Solana RPC method that fetches the account data for up to 100 public keys in a single request, returning an array of AccountInfo objects in the same order as the input keys. This batched approach is significantly more efficient than calling getAccountInfo repeatedly, reducing round trips and RPC load. It supports the same encoding and commitment parameters as getAccountInfo. Accounts that do not exist return null in the response array.

Open term
Related terms

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Infrastructureyellowstone

Yellowstone gRPC

An open-source Geyser plugin implementation by Triton One that re-exposes the validator's internal event stream over a gRPC/Protobuf interface, enabling clients to subscribe to filtered streams of account updates, transactions, and slot notifications with sub-millisecond latency from the validator. It has become the de facto streaming standard for Solana MEV bots, high-frequency trading systems, and indexers that require lower latency and richer filtering than WebSocket subscriptions provide.

Open term
Infrastructuregeyser

Geyser Plugin

A Solana validator plugin interface (defined in solana-geyser-plugin-interface) that allows external processes to receive a real-time stream of every account update, transaction, slot status change, and block notification directly from the validator's internal processing pipeline via shared-memory callbacks, bypassing the RPC layer entirely. Geyser is the foundation for high-performance indexers, custom databases, and streaming infrastructure like Yellowstone gRPC, because it delivers data at validator speed with zero polling overhead.

Open term
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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