# 44 Days of Solana: From an Empty README to a Live NFT on-chain — My Finish-Up-A-Thon Story > Source: > Published: 2026-06-04 05:55:51+00:00 *This is a submission for the GitHub Finish-Up-A-Thon Challenge* Honestly, I almost didn't write this post. Not because I didn't have anything to show — but because I kept telling myself "it's not done yet." Sound familiar? Back in early 2026, I started a repo called ** 100 Days of Solana**. Day 1, I generated a keypair. That was it. One file in the repo — a README with a title and no code. I had no blockchain background, only a Web2 history in Python and JavaScript. I didn't even know what "rent" meant in the context of Solana accounts. But I kept showing up. 44 days later, here's what that same repo became: This project means more to me than any side project I've ever started. It's proof that 30 minutes a day, compounded over 44 days, produces something real and verifiable. And GitHub Copilot is a big reason I didn't quit on Day 8, Day 23, or Day 39. **🔗 Repo:** [https://github.com/gopichandchalla16/100-days-of-solana](https://github.com/gopichandchalla16/100-days-of-solana) I built this NFT end-to-end using nothing but `spl-token` CLI commands. No framework. No JS. Just me, the terminal, and a lot of patience. | Field | Value | |---|---| Name | First Light | Symbol | LIGHT | Mint Address | `nftTnVuyNU1kwTgv7edG6BPmHCtp2NMrawbw94kwZTF` | Program | Token-2022 | Supply | 1 (locked forever) | Decimals | 0 | Extensions | `metadataPointer` + `tokenMetadata` | Mint Authority | Disabled 🔒 | 🔗 [View "First Light" on Solana Explorer](https://explorer.solana.com/address/nftTnVuyNU1kwTgv7edG6BPmHCtp2NMrawbw94kwZTF?cluster=devnet) The vanity keypair starting with `nft` took about 20 minutes to generate locally using `solana-keygen grind` . Every character you see in that address was intentional. Here are all 5 transactions, in order. You can click any of them and see exactly what happened on the Solana blockchain: | Step | What I Did | Verified Transaction | |---|---|---| | 1 | Created mint account, initialized metadata pointer, initialized mint | | No one can ever mint another LIGHT token. That is by design. These are not just summaries of what I did. Each one is a full explanation written specifically for Web2 developers entering the Solana ecosystem: | Metric | Status | |---|---| | 🟣 Daily Build Progress | 44 / 100 Days Complete | | 🖤 DEV.to Articles | 9 Published | | 🟢 On-Chain Transactions | Live on Solana Devnet | | 📄 License | MIT | | 🔒 NFT Mint Authority | Disabled Forever | Let me be honest about where this project started and where it almost ended. gopichandchalla16/100-days-of-solana └── README.md ← literally just a title That was it. I had written "100 Days of Solana — learning in public" and committed it at midnight. No code. No plan. Just a title and the pressure of having put it on GitHub. The first week was rough. The Solana docs are not beginner-friendly if you're coming from Web2. The Token-2022 documentation is especially sparse. I spent 3 hours on Day 4 just trying to understand why my airdrop wasn't showing up (I was checking the wrong cluster). There were three moments where I almost stopped entirely: **Day 8** — I couldn't figure out why my token transfer kept failing with a cryptic `0x1` error. I had been at it for two hours and it was past midnight. I nearly closed the laptop and told myself I'd "come back to it." **Day 23** — I hit a wall with Token-2022 extension architecture. I understood how individual extensions worked but not how to compose them safely. Nothing I read explained it in plain terms. **Day 39** — The NFT build broke on step 2 of 5. My metadata wasn't being initialized because I ran `initialize-mint` before `initialize-metadata-pointer` . The error wasn't obvious. I almost started over from scratch. I didn't quit any of those nights. GitHub Copilot helped me through each one — and I'll explain exactly how in the Copilot section. gopichandchalla16/100-days-of-solana ├── day-01/ through day-44/ ← 44 documented daily builds ├── 9 DEV.to articles published ├── Every tx signature verified on Solana Explorer ├── Token-2022 extensions built and tested: │ ├── Transfer fees (compliance use case) │ ├── Interest-bearing tokens (DeFi use case) │ ├── Default frozen + thaw (regulated assets) │ ├── Non-transferable / soulbound (credentials) │ └── Permanent delegate (revocable access) ├── NFT "First Light" — vanity keypair, Token-2022, │ on-chain metadata, locked supply └── README with live progress bar, week logs, all explorer links The difference between Day 1 and Day 44 is not just the code. It's the understanding behind it. **Day 13 — The account model finally made sense.** I had been running `solana balance` and `spl-token create-account` for days without really understanding *why* Solana accounts need rent. Then I sat down and wrote a DEV.to article explaining it with a Web2 analogy: *accounts are like database rows, rent is like a monthly hosting fee — stop paying and the row gets deleted.* Writing that article forced me to understand it deeply enough to explain it simply. After Day 13, I stopped copying commands and started understanding what each one actually does. **Days 36–40 — Five Token-2022 extension combinations in one week.** This was the hardest week. I built: Each one is a real devnet transaction. Each one has a verifiable signature on Solana Explorer. Each one taught me something different about how Token-2022 is designed to handle real-world financial and compliance scenarios. **Days 43–44 — My first NFT. No Metaplex. Just the CLI.** I wanted to understand NFTs at the protocol level — not through a framework, not through a library, but through raw `spl-token` commands. I generated a vanity keypair starting with `nft` using `solana-keygen grind` . I added two Token-2022 extensions: `metadataPointer` and `tokenMetadata` . I minted exactly 1 token. I disabled the mint authority forever. "First Light" now lives on-chain permanently with its name, symbol, and metadata URI intact. Nobody can create another one. That's what makes it an NFT. Token-2022 extensions cannot be added after mint creation. Ever. There's no workaround. No patch. No update instruction. You must decide your full extension set before you run `initialize-mint` . It's like designing a database schema — you can't add a non-nullable column without a migration. I learned this the hard way on Day 38 when I tried to add `interest-bearing` to an existing mint. The transaction failed and I had to start the token from scratch. That 30-minute mistake became the most important architectural lesson I've had in 44 days. I want to be specific here, not just say "Copilot helped a lot." Here are the exact moments where it made the difference. `0x11` at midnight (Day 37) My compliance-gated token transfer failed with error `0x11` — `AccountFrozen` . I knew the token was frozen by design but I thought I had thawed it. The transaction kept failing anyway. I was staring at the error in my terminal. Copilot's inline suggestion explained what I was missing: **both the sender's ATA and the recipient's ATA need to be thawed** — not just the sender's. Without Copilot, I would have been digging through the SPL Token source code for the next hour — or worse, I would have given up and moved on without truly understanding the error. Non-transferable tokens are conceptually simple — once minted to a wallet, they can never move. But when I tried to demonstrate this by attempting a transfer, the transaction failed with `0x25` . I didn't expect the error. Copilot explained: non-transferable tokens can be burned but not transferred. It then suggested I write a burn script to demonstrate the constraint properly — which turned into the best hands-on example in my Week 6 article. The bug became the feature. That happens a lot when Copilot is involved. The Token-2022 program ID is 44 characters long: TokenzQdBNbLqP5VEhdkAS6EPFLC1PHnBqCXEpPxuEb Before Copilot, I copied this from docs and sometimes mis-pasted it. With Copilot, it autocompleted the entire ID, the `--program-id` flag, all the relevant options, and even the correct sequence of commands. The sequence matters enormously in Token-2022. For the NFT build, `initialize-metadata-pointer` **must** come before `initialize-mint` . The Solana docs don't emphasize this clearly for beginners. Copilot's autocomplete surfaced the correct order naturally, in context, while I was typing. That saved me from the exact error that had broken my build on Day 39. Every DEV.to article I wrote started the same way: a terminal window full of transaction signatures, error codes, and hex-encoded account data. Copilot helped me turn that raw output into: Nine articles. 300+ reactions across all of them. That audience engagement would not exist without Copilot helping me bridge the gap between "developer notes" and "readable article." This is the thing I appreciate most about Copilot, and it's hard to quantify. When a command worked, I often didn't fully understand *why* it worked. Copilot's inline comments filled those gaps constantly: These micro-explanations compounded over 44 days into real, deep understanding of the protocol. I'm not just writing Solana commands anymore. I understand what they do and why they exist. GitHub Copilot didn't write this project for me. Every transaction on Solana Explorer is a decision I made, a command I typed, a concept I understood. But Copilot removed the friction that would have made me quit. It turned 2-hour debugging sessions into 10-minute ones. It turned terminal output into articles people actually read. It turned "I don't understand this" into "oh, that's why." 44 days in. 56 to go. I'm not stopping. **🔗 GitHub Repo:** [https://github.com/gopichandchalla16/100-days-of-solana](https://github.com/gopichandchalla16/100-days-of-solana) **📰 DEV Profile:** [https://dev.to/gopichand_dev](https://dev.to/gopichand_dev) **🐦 X / Twitter:** [https://x.com/GopichandAI](https://x.com/GopichandAI) *If you're a Web2 developer curious about Solana — follow the repo. Every day folder has the exact commands I ran, the errors I hit, and what I learned. It's all there.* *#100DaysOfSolana #Solana #Web3 #BuildInPublic*