What is a Solana wallet?
A Solana wallet is an app that holds the private keys to an address on the Solana network. The coins stay on the blockchain. What the wallet holds is the key that moves them, which is why the recovery phrase matters more than the app you happen to be using. In a self-custody wallet those keys are generated on your device and stay there, so nobody else can move your SOL.
SOL is the native coin of Solana, and it pays the network fee on everything you do: sending, swapping, connecting to an app. The network also carries thousands of tokens built to the SPL standard, stablecoins such as USDC among them. Even when what you are sending is an SPL token, the fee still comes out of your SOL, so a small SOL balance has to sit in the same wallet. If the network itself is new to you, our dedicated page about Solana covers the basics.
Solana is its own network rather than an Ethereum-compatible one, and that difference shows up in the address. Solana addresses are not the 0x format used by Ethereum, Polygon and Avalanche, and SPL is not ERC-20. It also means the same token on two networks is two separate balances: USDC on Solana is not the USDC you hold on Ethereum, Base or Tron, and the two cannot be sent to each other's addresses.
Once the wallet is set up you can buy SOL with a card or bank transfer, cash out again when you want to, and follow the SOL price as it moves.
