Who are you on Solana blockchain ? Your keys, your identity — no one else's

#100daysofsolana #solana #web3 #blockchain

We've done this before — on GitHub

Apart from using our gmail or email as identity on internet, the very first time we come across sharing anything like cryptographic key pair is when we register ourself or our machine on git hub. Remember how we generate a public key using the following command.

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "you@email.com"
# generates two files:
# id_ed25519 ← your private key (never share this)
# id_ed25519.pub ← your public key (paste this on GitHub)

This generates the public and private key pair. We paste the public key into GitHub's settings. Every time we push code, our machine signs the request with the private key. GitHub verifies it against the public key it holds. No password. No token. Just math.

Solana does a similar thing

Wallets generate an Ed2519 key pair too! The public key becomes our identity on the blockchain.

Solana address (public key, Base58-encoded)
14grJpemFaf88c8tiVb77W7TYg2W3ir6pfkKz3YjhhZ5

This public key isn't stored any central server instead its stored on entire Solana network. Our identity is the key pair itself. On Solana, there's no admin panel, no password reset, no support ticket. Only the holder of the private key can sign transactions for an account.

What a cryptographic identity unlocks?

The key pair is in self custody, it allows interactions with solana applications, programs, holding tokens without permissions from someone else. A typical identity is platform dependent where as a Solana identity is portable, works everywhere the network works.