Network

Local Fee Market

Solana's per-account fee pricing model where priority fee competition is scoped to transactions contending for the same writable accounts, rather than applying a single global fee to all transactions. Congestion on a popular DEX pool or NFT mint drives up priority fees only for transactions touching those specific accounts, while unrelated transactions can land cheaply in parallel. This design is a direct consequence of Solana's parallel execution model and account-level locking.

IDlocal-fee-market

Plain meaning

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Solana's per-account fee pricing model where priority fee competition is scoped to transactions contending for the same writable accounts, rather than applying a single global fee to all transactions. Congestion on a popular DEX pool or NFT mint drives up priority fees only for transactions touching those specific accounts, while unrelated transactions can land cheaply in parallel. This design is a direct consequence of Solana's parallel execution model and account-level locking.

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Local Fee Market (local-fee-market)
Category: Network
Definition: Solana's per-account fee pricing model where priority fee competition is scoped to transactions contending for the same writable accounts, rather than applying a single global fee to all transactions. Congestion on a popular DEX pool or NFT mint drives up priority fees only for transactions touching those specific accounts, while unrelated transactions can land cheaply in parallel. This design is a direct consequence of Solana's parallel execution model and account-level locking.
Related: Fee Market (Local/Global), Priority Fee, Account Locking (Read/Write)
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Concept graph

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Branch

Fee Market (Local/Global)

Solana operates a local fee market rather than a global one: priority fee competition is scoped to transactions that contend for the same writable accounts, so congestion on one hot account (e.g., a popular AMM pool) does not raise fees for unrelated transactions. This account-centric model means that a highly contested token mint or DEX pool can require very high priority fees to land while other transactions proceed cheaply in parallel. The local fee market is enforced by the scheduler's per-account fee-priority ordering.

Branch

Priority Fee

An optional additional fee paid on top of the base fee to increase the likelihood that a transaction is processed quickly by the current leader, expressed as a price in micro-lamports per compute unit (CU). The total priority fee equals (compute unit price × compute unit limit) / 1,000,000 lamports. Leaders sort transactions in their queue by fee-per-CU, so setting a competitive priority fee is the primary mechanism for ensuring reliable transaction landing during congestion.

Branch

Account Locking (Read/Write)

The mechanism by which Solana's scheduler reserves access to accounts for the duration of a transaction's execution, granting either shared read locks (multiple transactions can hold simultaneously) or exclusive write locks (only one transaction at a time). Before execution, the runtime inspects every transaction's declared account list and grants or denies locks accordingly, preventing data races without requiring a global mutex. Transactions that cannot acquire all required locks are queued or dropped, making correct account declaration in transaction instructions critical for both correctness and landing probability.

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Network

Fee Market (Local/Global)

Solana operates a local fee market rather than a global one: priority fee competition is scoped to transactions that contend for the same writable accounts, so congestion on one hot account (e.g., a popular AMM pool) does not raise fees for unrelated transactions. This account-centric model means that a highly contested token mint or DEX pool can require very high priority fees to land while other transactions proceed cheaply in parallel. The local fee market is enforced by the scheduler's per-account fee-priority ordering.

Network

Priority Fee

An optional additional fee paid on top of the base fee to increase the likelihood that a transaction is processed quickly by the current leader, expressed as a price in micro-lamports per compute unit (CU). The total priority fee equals (compute unit price × compute unit limit) / 1,000,000 lamports. Leaders sort transactions in their queue by fee-per-CU, so setting a competitive priority fee is the primary mechanism for ensuring reliable transaction landing during congestion.

Network

Account Locking (Read/Write)

The mechanism by which Solana's scheduler reserves access to accounts for the duration of a transaction's execution, granting either shared read locks (multiple transactions can hold simultaneously) or exclusive write locks (only one transaction at a time). Before execution, the runtime inspects every transaction's declared account list and grants or denies locks accordingly, preventing data races without requiring a global mutex. Transactions that cannot acquire all required locks are queued or dropped, making correct account declaration in transaction instructions critical for both correctness and landing probability.

Network

Mainnet Beta

Solana's primary production cluster where real SOL and real economic activity occur; the "beta" designation reflects the network's ongoing protocol development despite being fully live since March 2020. It uses the same architecture as other clusters but with real validator stakes, live staking rewards, and permanent on-chain state. All production dApps, tokens, and NFTs exist on Mainnet Beta.

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Networkfee-market

Fee Market (Local/Global)

Solana operates a local fee market rather than a global one: priority fee competition is scoped to transactions that contend for the same writable accounts, so congestion on one hot account (e.g., a popular AMM pool) does not raise fees for unrelated transactions. This account-centric model means that a highly contested token mint or DEX pool can require very high priority fees to land while other transactions proceed cheaply in parallel. The local fee market is enforced by the scheduler's per-account fee-priority ordering.

Networkbase-fee

Base Fee

The fixed, non-negotiable minimum fee charged per transaction signature on Solana, currently set at 5,000 lamports (0.000005 SOL) per signature. A transaction with N signatures pays N × 5,000 lamports as a base fee regardless of compute usage or network load. Fifty percent of the base fee is burned and fifty percent is paid to the current slot leader, making Solana mildly deflationary with usage.

Networkpriority-fee

Priority Fee

An optional additional fee paid on top of the base fee to increase the likelihood that a transaction is processed quickly by the current leader, expressed as a price in micro-lamports per compute unit (CU). The total priority fee equals (compute unit price × compute unit limit) / 1,000,000 lamports. Leaders sort transactions in their queue by fee-per-CU, so setting a competitive priority fee is the primary mechanism for ensuring reliable transaction landing during congestion.

AliasCompute Unit Price
Related terms

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Networkfee-market

Fee Market (Local/Global)

Solana operates a local fee market rather than a global one: priority fee competition is scoped to transactions that contend for the same writable accounts, so congestion on one hot account (e.g., a popular AMM pool) does not raise fees for unrelated transactions. This account-centric model means that a highly contested token mint or DEX pool can require very high priority fees to land while other transactions proceed cheaply in parallel. The local fee market is enforced by the scheduler's per-account fee-priority ordering.

Networkpriority-fee

Priority Fee

An optional additional fee paid on top of the base fee to increase the likelihood that a transaction is processed quickly by the current leader, expressed as a price in micro-lamports per compute unit (CU). The total priority fee equals (compute unit price × compute unit limit) / 1,000,000 lamports. Leaders sort transactions in their queue by fee-per-CU, so setting a competitive priority fee is the primary mechanism for ensuring reliable transaction landing during congestion.

Networkaccount-locking

Account Locking (Read/Write)

The mechanism by which Solana's scheduler reserves access to accounts for the duration of a transaction's execution, granting either shared read locks (multiple transactions can hold simultaneously) or exclusive write locks (only one transaction at a time). Before execution, the runtime inspects every transaction's declared account list and grants or denies locks accordingly, preventing data races without requiring a global mutex. Transactions that cannot acquire all required locks are queued or dropped, making correct account declaration in transaction instructions critical for both correctness and landing probability.

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Network

Mainnet Beta

Solana's primary production cluster where real SOL and real economic activity occur; the "beta" designation reflects the network's ongoing protocol development despite being fully live since March 2020. It uses the same architecture as other clusters but with real validator stakes, live staking rewards, and permanent on-chain state. All production dApps, tokens, and NFTs exist on Mainnet Beta.

Network

Devnet

A persistent public Solana cluster intended for application development and testing, running the same software version as Mainnet Beta but with no real economic value. Devnet SOL can be freely airdropped via the CLI or faucet APIs, and the ledger may be reset periodically by Solana Labs. Developers use Devnet to test programs and integrations before deploying to Mainnet Beta.

Network

Testnet

A public Solana cluster used primarily by the Solana core team and validators to test new software releases, performance benchmarks, and network upgrades under real network conditions before they reach Mainnet Beta. Testnet SOL has no monetary value, and the ledger is reset more frequently than Devnet; it is less suitable for application development and more suited for validator operators validating their infrastructure.

Network

TPS (Transactions Per Second)

The rate at which a Solana cluster processes and commits transactions; Solana's theoretical maximum exceeds 65,000 TPS due to its parallel execution model, though real-world sustained throughput on Mainnet Beta typically ranges from 2,000–5,000 non-vote TPS under normal load. Vote transactions (used for consensus) make up a significant portion of all on-chain activity and are counted separately. High TPS is enabled by Proof of History timestamps, Sealevel parallel execution, and Gulf Stream mempool-less forwarding.