Derivation paths on Solana
Derivation paths are a key part of creating a wallet for any blockchain.
Derivation paths on Solana
To write to the Solana blockchain or interact with a protocol, you need a wallet.
A wallet consists of a mnemonic phrase (a sequence of twelve English words) and a public key address.
To derive the public key address from a mnemonic phrase, a derivation path is needed.
There are infinitely many derivation paths, and so you can generate an infinite number of public key addresses from a single mnemonic phrase.
Sollet and Phantom use the derivation path, “m/44’/501’/0’/0’” and Solflare uses “m/44’/501’/0’”. The Solana CLI uses a different one (not sure exactly what that is, but please let me know if you know).
You can increment the last digit to get a new address, such as “m/44’/501’/0’/1’” and “m/44’/501’/0’/2’”.
If you’d like to easily derive public key addresses, try out this endpoint here on The Blockchain API. You can provide the mnemonic phrase, optional passphrase, and derivation path and receive a public key in response. It makes it easy to derive keys from a mnemonic phrase.
If you have any questions on the API, email info [(at)] blockchainapi.com or open a new GitHub issue on our GitHub repository.