A 32-byte Ed25519 public key that serves as the unique address for accounts on Solana. Pubkeys are displayed as Base58-encoded strings (e.g., '11111111111111111111111111111111' for the System Program). Every account, program, and PDA is identified by its pubkey.
Start with the shortest useful explanation before going deeper.
A 32-byte Ed25519 public key that serves as the unique address for accounts on Solana. Pubkeys are displayed as Base58-encoded strings (e.g., '11111111111111111111111111111111' for the System Program). Every account, program, and PDA is identified by its pubkey.
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 one of the core moving pieces your program reads, writes, or invokes at runtime.
Place the term inside its Solana layer so the definition is easier to reason about.
Accounts, instructions, PDAs, transactions, and execution flow.
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.
Use this compact block when you want to give an agent or assistant grounded context without dumping the entire page.
Public Key (Pubkey) (pubkey) Category: Programming Model Definition: A 32-byte Ed25519 public key that serves as the unique address for accounts on Solana. Pubkeys are displayed as Base58-encoded strings (e.g., '11111111111111111111111111111111' for the System Program). Every account, program, and PDA is identified by its pubkey. Aliases: Pubkey, Address Related: Keypair, Account
Use glossary context, relationships, mental models, and builder paths to get structured answers instead of generic chat output.
Optional: paste Anchor, Solana, or Rust code so the Copilot can map primitives back to glossary terms.
The Copilot will answer using the current term, related concepts, mental models, and the surrounding glossary graph.
These branches show which concepts this term touches directly and what sits one layer beyond them.
A pair of a 32-byte Ed25519 private key and its corresponding 32-byte public key. Keypairs are used to sign transactions and derive account addresses. They are stored as 64-byte arrays (private + public concatenated) in JSON files by the Solana CLI. The private key should never be shared or exposed.
The fundamental data storage unit on Solana. Every piece of state is stored in an account identified by a 32-byte public key. Accounts hold a lamport balance, an owner program, a data byte array (up to 10MB), and an executable flag. Only the owning program can modify an account's data, but anyone can credit lamports to it.
These are the next concepts worth opening if you want this term to make more sense inside a real Solana workflow.
These entries are easy to mix up when you are reading quickly, prompting an LLM, or onboarding into a new layer of Solana.
An on-chain account that stores up to 256 pubkeys, enabling v0 transactions to reference accounts by 1-byte index instead of full 32-byte pubkeys. ALTs dramatically reduce transaction size when interacting with many accounts (e.g., DEX routing). ALTs must be created and populated in advance; entries become active after a slot delay.
A function that derives a PDA by iterating bump seeds from 255 down to 0 until finding a pubkey not on the Ed25519 curve. It returns (pubkey, bump). In Anchor, the #[account(seeds=[...], bump)] constraint calls this automatically. The corresponding create_program_address skips iteration and takes an explicit bump.
The secret 32-byte component of an Ed25519 keypair used to produce digital signatures. The private key must be kept confidential — anyone with access to it can sign transactions and transfer assets from the corresponding account. Private keys are typically stored in JSON files (as 64-byte arrays including the public key) by the Solana CLI or encrypted within wallet software.
Glossary entries become useful when they are connected. These links are the shortest path to adjacent ideas.
A pair of a 32-byte Ed25519 private key and its corresponding 32-byte public key. Keypairs are used to sign transactions and derive account addresses. They are stored as 64-byte arrays (private + public concatenated) in JSON files by the Solana CLI. The private key should never be shared or exposed.
The fundamental data storage unit on Solana. Every piece of state is stored in an account identified by a 32-byte public key. Accounts hold a lamport balance, an owner program, a data byte array (up to 10MB), and an executable flag. Only the owning program can modify an account's data, but anyone can credit lamports to it.
These entries live beside the current term and help the page feel like part of a larger knowledge graph instead of a dead end.
The fundamental data storage unit on Solana. Every piece of state is stored in an account identified by a 32-byte public key. Accounts hold a lamport balance, an owner program, a data byte array (up to 10MB), and an executable flag. Only the owning program can modify an account's data, but anyone can credit lamports to it.
Executable code deployed on-chain, equivalent to a smart contract on other blockchains. Programs are stateless—they store no data themselves but read/write data in separate accounts they own. Programs are compiled to SBF bytecode and loaded via the BPF Loader. Every program has a unique Program ID (its account's public key).
A single operation within a transaction that invokes a program. An instruction specifies: (1) the program ID to call, (2) an array of account metas (pubkey, is_signer, is_writable), and (3) an opaque data byte array. Programs decode the instruction data to determine which operation to perform.
An atomic unit of execution containing one or more instructions, a recent blockhash, and one or more signatures. All instructions in a transaction execute sequentially and atomically—if any instruction fails, the entire transaction reverts. Transactions have a 1,232-byte size limit (matching IPv6 MTU) and a default 200,000 CU budget.