Week 2 of #100DaysOfSolana: When “Public Database” Finally Clicked

After two weeks building on Solana, I feel like my mental model of “blockchain” has completely changed.

Before this, I used to think blockchain data was something abstract, complex, and hard to access. Something like a black box where transactions go in, and magic comes out.

Reality?
It’s surprisingly simple… and surprisingly different.
🧱 What I Expected vs Reality
Coming from a fullstack background (PHP, Go, APIs, databases), I expected:

• Tables
• Queries (SELECT, JOIN, WHERE)
• Structured schemas

But on Solana, there are no tables.

Instead:

• Accounts = your data
• Programs = your logic
• RPC = your API

At first, this felt strange.

But once I reframed it like this:

Solana = a giant public database you can read from

Things started to make sense.

⸻

⚡ The Moment It Clicked

The biggest “aha” moment came when I fetched:

• Balance of an address
• Recent transactions

Using just an RPC call.
No authentication.
No backend.
No database setup.
Just:

const balance = await rpc.getBalance(address).send();

That’s it.
At that moment, it clicked:
This is just a read-only API… but global and trustless.
🧩 What Surprised Me Most

1. Same Code, Different Network = Completely Different Data

When I compared devnet vs mainnet, I got:

• Devnet → 5 SOL + transactions (from testing)
• Mainnet → 0 SOL + no activity

Same address. Same code.

Completely different reality.

This felt exactly like:

• Devnet = staging DB
• Mainnet = production DB

But with real money involved.

1. Everything is Public

In Web2:

• You need auth
• You need permission
• You need APIs

In Solana:

• You can read anything
• Anytime
• From anywhere

That’s powerful… and a bit scary 😅

1. RPC Feels Like an API, But It’s Not Quite the Same

Working with Solana RPC feels familiar:

• Request → Response
• JSON data
• Async calls

But the mindset is different:

• You’re not querying your backend
• You’re querying a shared global state

That changes how you think about data completely.
🚧 What I’m Still Confused About

A few things I’m still figuring out:

• How to write data safely (transactions, signing, fees)
• How programs (smart contracts) actually store structured data
• Best practices for building real apps on top of accounts

Reading data feels easy.

Writing data feels like the next big challenge.
🚀 What I Want to Learn Next

Next, I want to focus on:

• Sending transactions
• Interacting with programs
• Building a real dApp with a wallet (Phantom, etc.)
• Moving from “read-only” → “read + write”

⸻

Final Thoughts

Week 2 made one thing clear:

Blockchain isn’t magic.
It’s just a different way of structuring and accessing data.

And once that clicks…

Everything becomes a lot more approachable.

⸻

If you’re also doing #100DaysOfSolana, I’d love to connect and see what you’re building 🚀