Decentralized exchanges let you trade crypto directly from your own wallet, without handing your funds to a company. Here is how they work, the main designs, what you pay, and the risks to understand first.
Solana Journal Editorial Team5 min read
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New explainers, guides and analysis, most recent first.
Dollar-cost averaging is a strategy; recurring purchases are a tool for carrying it out. Here is how DCA works with a worked example, how exchange and on-chain recurring buys compare, and the limits of the approach.
Solana Journal Editorial Team4 min read
Limit orders let you choose your price instead of taking the market's. Here is how they work on centralised exchanges and on Solana, how they compare with market and stop orders, and the pitfalls to avoid.
Solana Journal Editorial Team4 min read
How to set up, back up and use a Phantom wallet safely: creating your recovery phrase, receiving and sending SOL, swapping, connecting to apps, and recognising the scams that target wallet users.
Solana Journal Editorial Team5 min read
An independent explainer on Jupiter, the Solana swap aggregator: what it does, how routing works, its limit and DCA order tools, what you pay, and how to avoid the imitation sites that target its users.
Solana Journal Editorial Team5 min read
Liquidity pools are the engine behind most decentralized exchanges. Learn how they price trades, what liquidity providers earn, how impermanent loss works with worked examples, and how concentrated liquidity changes the picture.
Solana Journal Editorial Team5 min read
Swapping, staking, lending and providing liquidity on Solana, explained from first principles, with the risks of each spelled out and a sensible way to get started.
Solana Journal Editorial Team4 min read
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A plain-English tour of the Solana network: what SOL is used for, how accounts and programs work, why transactions are cheap and fast, and what changed when the Alpenglow consensus upgrade went live.
Solana Journal Editorial Team7 min read
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How the Solana network works: accounts, validators, fees, consensus upgrades and the ecosystem built on top of it.
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Decentralized exchanges, liquidity pools, lending and the mechanics of on-chain finance, with the risks spelled out.
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Order types, swaps, execution and risk management for crypto markets: the mechanics behind every trade.
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How to research new tokens, read on-chain data and recognise the red flags behind most losses.
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Setting up, securing and using self-custody wallets on Solana, from recovery phrases to transaction previews.
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Step-by-step explainers for every level, from your first steps in DeFi to managing a portfolio.
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