SOLANA FOUNDATION
Future Caribbean · Masterclass

Introduction to
Solana Development

Shipping real products with AI, from an idea to a live onchain app in days

Tonight
01Technology for finance
02The Solana mental model
03Product workflows with AI
04Starter pack and live Q&A
Presented by Gui Bibeau · Oct 27, 2026
Presenter
02 / 24

Gui Bibeau

Lead Product Engineer @ Solana Foundation

Education
8,000+
developers trained in Kazakhstan
I authored the Solana curriculum adopted across the country.
Product
Developer and
AI tools
I lead product engineering at the Solana Foundation.
PreviouslyVercelMetaMaskUdacityShutterstock
@GuiBibeau
Scan to connect on X
What is Solana?
03 / 24

What is Solana? Technology for Finance

Purpose-built technology for finance.

Payments, stablecoins, tokenized stocks, FX and autonomous AI agents all settle on one shared global ledger at internet speed.

solana.com/solutions/institutional-payments ↗solana.com/solutions/tokenization ↗
ONE SHAREDGLOBAL LEDGERsettles at internet speedPaymentsStablecoinsTokenized stocksFXAI agents
Why now
04 / 24

Why Solana in October 2026

200ms
slot times
A new block about five times every second.
~150ms
final settlement
Irreversible with Alpenglow, live on mainnet.
24/7
always open
Markets and payments that never close.
Live numbers, not a stale slide
Live network ↗
solana.com/network
Data and reports ↗
solana.com/reports
Stablecoins ↗
solana.com/solutions/stablecoins
Framing
05 / 24

What counts as a product on Solana today?

01
Infrastructure
Rails other apps build on
02
Games
Onchain items and economies
03
Developer and AI tools
Make builders and agents faster
04
Consumer and fintech
Apps real people use every day
Wide open for Caribbean builders
Money that moves between islands and currencies, settled in seconds.
Cross-border paymentsFXLocal stablecoin apps
Mental model 1
06 / 24

Wallets and Signing: Your Digital Debit Card

MY WALLET PUBLIC ADDRESS 7xKX ···· 9fQe = your account number SECRET PIN
Public address = account number
Share it freely. Anyone can send you money with it.
Private key = your secret PIN
It approves transactions and signs you into apps. Never share it.
Signing = pressing approve
You say yes to moving money or taking an action.
Building? Use a separate burner wallet with free test tokens on devnet. Keep real money far away from your code.
Mental model 2
07 / 24

How Solana Apps Work: Code is Separate from Data

YOU a transaction"here are the files" PROGRAM = the app logic only, holds zero data readsupdates ACCOUNTS = THE FILES Alice's balanceBob's balanceApp settings
YOUsend a transaction: "here are the files" PROGRAM = the app logic only, holds zero data readsupdates ACCOUNTS = THE FILES Alice's balanceBob's balanceApp settings
Programs are the apps
Pure instructions. Deploy once, used by everyone.
Accounts are the files
Balances and user info live here, passed in on every run.
One app, millions of users
Each user simply brings their own files.
Mental model 3
08 / 24

Why Solana is So Fast: A Multi-Lane Highway

tx 1tx 2tx 3tx 4tx 5tx 6SINGLE-FILE LINEEveryone waits for the car in front.One transaction at a time.
SOLANA: PARALLEL LANESLANE 1tx Atx ELANE 2tx Btx FLANE 3tx Ctx GLANE 4tx Dtx H
01Each transaction lists its files upfront
→
02No shared files means separate lanes
→
03Thousands run at the same time
Mental model 4
09 / 24

Everything is an Account, and How App Vaults Work

Your wallet
Your address and SOL balance
Token balances
How much of each token you hold
App settings
An app's config and user data
App vaults
Funds an app holds for its users
PROGRAMthe app's rules app ID + seed App Vault PROGRAM DERIVED ADDRESS no private key exists Userdeposits anytime Withdraw onlywhen the rules say yes
A vault address is born from the app's ID plus a seed, so only that program's code can move funds out. No human holds a key to lose.
Alpenglow
10 / 24

Alpenglow: Final in ~150ms, Faster Than a Blink

BEFORE 12.8 seconds NOW ~150 milliseconds about 85 times faster. Faster than a blink. 0s2s4s6s8s10s12s
BEFORE 12.8 seconds NOW ~150 milliseconds About 85 times faster. Faster than a blink. 0s2s4s6s8s10s12s
Old way
Validators voted by sending transactions, and finality took many rounds.
New way
Validators vote directly to each other, off-chain, and bundle votes into certificates.
Result
Blocks become final in as little as one round. Irreversible in about 150ms.
Live on mainnet since Oct 21, 2026solana.com/upgrades/alpenglow ↗
When you build
11 / 24

What Alpenglow Means When You Build

BEFORE ALPENGLOW processed confirmed finalized up to 12.8s apart NOW processed confirmed = finalized same state, in ~150ms
Your programs: unchanged
Same SVM, transactions, fees and account model.
Blocks: no more vote traffic
Votes left the block, so they no longer take up space.
Your reads: go straight to finalized
The strongest guarantee now costs no extra wait.
{ commitment: "finalized" }
Token extensions
12 / 24

Token Extensions: Built-In Features for Real Finance

Built into the token mintLaunch regulated financial products with no custom smart contract.
Confidential Balances
Amounts stay encrypted on a public ledger.
Private payrollB2B vendor payoutsTreasury transfers
Transfer Hooks + Allow and Deny Lists
Run your rules on every single transfer.
Automated KYC and AMLRegional restrictionsProgrammable royalties
Permanent Delegate + Freeze Authority
Issuer controls built for regulated assets.
Regulated asset recoveryCourt-ordered complianceEnterprise stablecoins
Interest-Bearing + Scaled UI Amount
Yield and corporate actions in the mint.
Treasury bills and bondsStock splitsDividends
solana.com/solutions/token-extensions ↗
Goal
13 / 24

Work Deliberately

Most AI slop is not a model problem.
It is a feedback problem.

You don't need the latest AI model
A structured workflow beats vibe-prompting every time.
FEEDBACKLOOP0Wire up1Research2Whiteboard3PRD4Build + QA5Ship in public
Step 0
14 / 24

Step 0: Wire Up Your AI Agent for Solana

Stop your agent from hallucinating legacy Solana code. Two minutes of setup.
01
Solana MCP ↗
Live, current Solana answers inside Cursor, Claude Code or Codex.
https://mcp.solana.com/mcp
02
Solana Skills ↗
Official skills that teach your agent today's Solana patterns.
solana.com/skills
03
Developer Templates ↗
Start from a working app, never from a blank folder.
npx create-solana-dapp@latest
Your AI agent→MCP + Skills→Current Solana docs→Working code
Workflow 1
15 / 24

Learn the Product Space: Deep Research + NotebookLM

1
Deep research
Across X, Reddit and GitHub. Map protocols, pain points and docs.
→
2
Read it fully
Take your time, even if it's harder than TikTok.
→
3
NotebookLM
Load every source and interrogate the domain.
→
4
Then write code
Only now does the first line get written.
Answer firstGather the informationLearn the technicalsWho is the competitionWho are the users
notebooklm.google.com ↗
Workflow 2
16 / 24

Whiteboard Your Architecture First

User wallet Your program rules App vault Price feed signs LLM: "Who can withdraw?"
1
Draw it
Imagine your project. Boxes and arrows, nothing fancy.
2
Snap it
Take a picture and send it to an LLM.
3
Get grilled
Have the LLM question your architecture.
The highest-leverage manual step. It's likely the last time you go fully manual.
Workflow 3
17 / 24

Grill Yourself Into a Tight PRD

1
Describe
Write out the idea with as many words as you can.
2
Grill Me
The LLM interrogates your edge cases. Read every single question.
3
to-prd
Define the smallest POC worth showing to users.
4
Mock screens
Image gen for each screen, then refine every detail.
SEND TO JAMAICA Enter amount stablecoin · settles in ~150ms Review and send
A UI mockup from the PRD, before a single line of code.
github.com/mattpocock/skills ↗Simplified Technical English ↗
Workflow 4
18 / 24

The Implementation and QA Loop

to-issuesmall issuesimplementTDD on SurfpoolQAbrowser, every sizerepeat
The QA pass
Check all features
Check all screen sizes
Capture every bug with to-issue
Send corrections
Review the code structure if you can read code
Optional: build a CLI that puts your app in any state for testing.
mattpocock/skills ↗surfpool.run ↗pstack verifiability ↗
Launch
19 / 24

Launch Faster with pay.sh, tokens.xyz and Hackathons

pay.sh ↗
Instant stablecoin payments for apps and agents. Call paid APIs with no sign-up via HTTP 402 and x402 micropayments.
solana-foundation/paypay-kitsolana.com/x402
npx @solana/pay --sandbox curl …
tokens.xyz ↗
The canonical source of truth and tooling for every token on Solana. Look up, list and integrate assets.
solana-foundation/tokens
Narrative hackathons ↗
Regular themed sprints on fresh primitives. Stocklana put tokenized stocks on the menu. Ship fast and win prizes.
Stocklanahackathons.solana.com
Workflow 5
20 / 24

Kill Landing Page Slop and Work in Public Daily

Connect wallet Send money home in seconds. One clear promise. Five or six words. No buzzwords. Try the live demo demo works with no wallet
Kill landing page slop
1
5 to 6 word hero tagline
Say exactly what it does.
2
Demo before the wallet
Let users try it first, then ask them to connect.
Work in public, every day
A 2 minute progress video
Screenshots of the architecture
Screenshots of a new feature
A cool learning from building
Building is the easy part. Distribution is hard. People crave human stories and wins.
Starter pack 1 / 3
21 / 24

Core Docs, Live Telemetry and Finance Primitives

solana.com/docs
The full mental model, from accounts to programs.
solana.com/docs/intro/quick-start
Your first program in the browser, today.
solana.com/upgrades/alpenglow
What changed with ~150ms finality.
solana.com/network
Real-time telemetry. Always current.
solana.com/reports
Ecosystem reports from the Foundation.
solana.com/solutions/token-extensions
Built-in features for real finance.
tokens.xyz
Canonical source of truth for tokens.
Read in this order
1. Quick Start
2. Docs: accounts
3. Alpenglow
4. Token Extensions
Starter pack 2 / 3
22 / 24

Your AI Coding and Payments Stack

mcp.solana.com/mcp
Add as a remote MCP server in Cursor, Claude Code or Codex.
https://mcp.solana.com/mcp
solana.com/skills
Official agent skills for current Solana patterns.
solana.com/skills
solana.com/developers/templates
Scaffold a working full-stack dApp.
npx create-solana-dapp@latest
pay.sh
Stablecoin payments for agents and CLIs. Repos: solana-foundation/pay and pay-kit.
npm install -g @solana/pay
solana.com/x402
Charge per request over HTTP. Built for AI agents.
solana.com/x402
Two minute setup
Add the MCP
Install the skills
Scaffold a template
Wire payments with pay.sh
Starter pack 3 / 3
23 / 24

The 5 AI Starter Gists, Curriculum and Hackathons

AI starter promptsPaste one into your agent. Each is wired to mcp.solana.com.
01Protocol ↗
Low level work: DeFi and tokenization.
02Product ↗
Higher level apps people use.
03Trading Bot ↗
Be careful. Use paper funds.
04Prediction Market ↗
Wild use cases for creative folks.
05Wallet Agents ↗
Give agents autonomy to act onchain.
Solana Curriculum ↗
The open-source course behind 8,000+ developers.
Narrative Hackathons ↗
Stocklana and the next themed sprint.
Superteam Earn ↗
Bounties and grants for builders.
SOLANA FOUNDATION
Next 20 to 30 minutes

Open Q&A and
Live Idea Feedback

Bring your idea, your whiteboard or your hardest question.

The Solana mental modelAI workflowsHackathon ideasPayments and FX for the CaribbeanYour architecture sketch
@GuiBibeau
guibibeau.com ↗
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