I recently joined the 100 Days of Solana challenge, and in the first few days I did some pretty basic things:

Generated a wallet

Funded it using devnet

Connected it to apps

Sent transactions

Sounds simple, right?

But it raised a bigger question for me:

If there’s no email/password… how does identity even work here?

If you're coming from Web2, this part can feel confusing at first. Let me break it down based on what I've learnt.

Web2 Identity (What We’re Used To)

In Web2, identity is straightforward:

You sign up with email + password

Your details are stored in a database

When you log in, the server verifies you

A session or token keeps you logged in

So basically, the server is responsible for knowing who you are.

The Shift: No Central Authority

On Solana, that model changes completely. The best way to think about it is:

Using a Solana wallet is like logging in with OAuth, except there’s no Google or Facebook verifying you.…