Solana Core Concepts

Solana is scalable, secure, and decentralized, also supporting the safe concurrent execution of programs in programming languages such as C, C++, and Rust.What's cool is that Solana is designed for widespread, mainstream use by being low-cost, fast, and efficient.

Proof of History

Some of the current leading blockchain technologies require mining, or the solution of very complex calculations, to validate security, which consumes a lot of energy and time and can cost hundreds of dollars per transaction. Solana employs a technique known as proof-of-stake(PoS) to validate data without requiring the time-consuming and energy-intensive process of mining, and then adds a unique innovation known as proof of history to the mix for even faster validation. It's so efficient that it only consumes as much power as a couple of Google searches.

Proof-of-history (PoH) works with Proof-of-Stake (PoS) to prove that enough time has passed between two events, like a clock. Because of this, a standard gigabit network could theoretically handle 710,000 transactions per second without any scaling solutions. 

Main concepts

Solana cluster: can be thought of as a group of privately owned computers that collaborate or compete with one another.

• Preserve/interpret record of events
• Track computer performance
• Track real-world assets

Solana ledger: There is one place where all transactions are recorded and kept for as long as the cluster exists. This place is called the "ledger."

Sol: The Native token of Solana which can be passed down to nodes in exchange for running on chain programs and validating outputs. Sol is subdivisible and 0.000000001 SOL called lamport.

Solana Apps: Solana applications consist of decentralized blockchain programs and web applications.

Basic flow: 

• Code is uploaded to the cluster directly by the developers.
• As the user interacts with the web app, the app will send a transaction containing the instruction(s).
• The instructions are carried out in a specific order.
• The correctness of each instruction is verified, and the decision is made whether or not to execute the program.

You should definitely take a look at @therealchaseeb’s mega thread on Solana before continuing with the rest of the show! 

Resources:

https://docs.solana.com/introduction 

https://blog.chain.link/how-to-build-and-deploy-a-solana-smart-contract/ 

https://learn.figment.io/tutorials/explaining-solanas-innovations-without-technical-jargon 

https://www.ledger.com/academy/blockchain/what-is-solana 

https://cointelegraph.com/news/what-is-solana-and-how-does-it-work

https://www.investopedia.com/solana-5210472

https://nftnow.com/guides/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-solana-blockchain-and-nfts/