A detailed exploration of Solana's transaction flow, explaining what happens under the hood when you transfer SOL from one wallet to another.

Overview

You have 1 SOL in your wallet. You open your wallet app, enter a recipient address, specify the amount, and hit send. A few seconds later, the transaction is confirmed. But what exactly happened during those few seconds?

This tutorial breaks down the entire process of a SOL transfer on Solana, from transaction construction to consensus and finality, including:

• How your wallet constructs the transaction (account addresses, Lamports, signatures)
• How transactions are serialized and sent to the network
• The role of the System Program in processing transfers
• How validators verify, process, and include your transaction in a block
• How Solana's Proof of History and tower BFT consensus ensure transaction finality
• Transaction prioritization and fees on Solana

Understanding this process helps developers build more secure applications and provides deeper insight into Solana's architecture.