The coins live on the chain; the wallet holds the private key that can move them. 'Send' means the wallet builds a transaction, signs it locally, and broadcasts — the key never leaves the device. Hardware wallets keep it in a chip; seed phrases are the human-readable backup of the same secret.
Custody is the decision that matters: self-custody means you hold the keys and there is no password reset — lose the seed, lose the funds; a custodial wallet means the platform holds them, which trades your risk for theirs. For businesses the practical rule is separation — a hot wallet for operations, cold storage for the treasury.
Related terms
Solana
A high-throughput, low-fee blockchain — thousands of transactions a second at fractions of a cent — built for applications that need speed.
SPL token
Solana's token standard — the shared program every fungible and non-fungible token on the chain uses, so wallets and apps speak one format.
Smart contract
A program deployed to a blockchain that runs exactly as written, that anyone can call, and that usually cannot be changed afterwards.
