Infrastructure

Priority Fee API

An RPC API (primarily Helius's getPriorityFeeEstimate) that calculates optimal priority fee recommendations based on real-time network congestion and historical fee data. Priority fees are priced in microlamports per compute unit. The API returns tiered estimates (low, medium, high, very high) to help developers balance cost and confirmation speed.

IDpriority-fee-apiAliasgetPriorityFeeEstimate

Plain meaning

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An RPC API (primarily Helius's getPriorityFeeEstimate) that calculates optimal priority fee recommendations based on real-time network congestion and historical fee data. Priority fees are priced in microlamports per compute unit. The API returns tiered estimates (low, medium, high, very high) to help developers balance cost and confirmation speed.

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

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Priority Fee API (priority-fee-api)
Category: Infrastructure
Definition: An RPC API (primarily Helius's getPriorityFeeEstimate) that calculates optimal priority fee recommendations based on real-time network congestion and historical fee data. Priority fees are priced in microlamports per compute unit. The API returns tiered estimates (low, medium, high, very high) to help developers balance cost and confirmation speed.
Aliases: getPriorityFeeEstimate
Related: Priority Fee, Compute Units (CU), Helius
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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

Compute Units (CU)

A measure of computational resources consumed by transaction execution, analogous to gas on Ethereum. Each BPF instruction costs CU; syscalls have predefined CU costs (e.g., SHA-256: 85 CU base + per-byte). Default per-instruction limit is 200,000 CU; max per-transaction is 1,400,000 CU. Priority fee cost = CU price × CU consumed.

Branch

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.

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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.

Programming Model

Compute Units (CU)

A measure of computational resources consumed by transaction execution, analogous to gas on Ethereum. Each BPF instruction costs CU; syscalls have predefined CU costs (e.g., SHA-256: 85 CU base + per-byte). Default per-instruction limit is 200,000 CU; max per-transaction is 1,400,000 CU. Priority fee cost = CU price × CU consumed.

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.

Infrastructure

Program Automation

The pattern of scheduling and triggering on-chain program instructions based on time intervals, cron expressions, or conditional state changes without manual intervention. On Solana, automation was pioneered by Clockwork (now sunset) using on-chain Thread accounts and has evolved toward off-chain keeper bot architectures where backend services monitor chain state and submit transactions when trigger conditions are met.

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Infrastructuredas

DAS (Digital Asset Standard) API

A unified RPC API specification, originated by Metaplex and adopted by major RPC providers, that provides indexed, queryable access to Solana digital assets including regular NFTs, compressed NFTs (cNFTs), and fungible tokens through methods like getAsset, getAssetsByOwner, getAssetsByGroup, and searchAssets. DAS abstracts away the complexity of reading raw Metaplex account data and reconstructing compressed NFT state from concurrent Merkle trees, making it the standard NFT data layer for wallets and marketplaces.

AliasDASAliasDigital Asset API
Related terms

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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.

Programming Modelcompute-units

Compute Units (CU)

A measure of computational resources consumed by transaction execution, analogous to gas on Ethereum. Each BPF instruction costs CU; syscalls have predefined CU costs (e.g., SHA-256: 85 CU base + per-byte). Default per-instruction limit is 200,000 CU; max per-transaction is 1,400,000 CU. Priority fee cost = CU price × CU consumed.

Infrastructurehelius

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.

More in category

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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.

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.

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.

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.