- Solana has unveiled an upgrade meant to streamline storage on the blockchain
- Called state compression, the tech introduces compressed NFTs in a bid to lower minting costs
- Solana believes this new type of collectibles are up to 24,000X cheaper compared to uncompressed NFTs
Solana has unveiled an upgrade meant to streamline storage on the blockchain while also significantly reducing NFT minting costs. Called ‘state compression’ technology, it introduces compressed NFTs which Solana Foundation tech head Jon Wong believes lowers mining fees by up to 24,000 times compared to when interacting with uncompressed collectibles. The crypto community has embraced the move terming it a game changer and a way to boost activity on the blockchain at a time when NFT projects are abandoning Solana for Ethereum and Polygon.
A Superior Way to Store Data on Solana
According to Wong, the state compression technology is a culmination of extended “development, adoption and rollout” phases done in collaboration with Solflare, Phantom, Metaplex, and remote procedure call (RPC) nodes.
2/ The first use of state compression, compressed NFTs, reduces the cost of minting NFTs on Solana by 2,400-24,000x.
As of April 5, minting 1 million uncompressed NFTs on Solana costs over $250,000.
Using compressed NFTs, it is around $110.
Notes: https://t.co/0baMJ0vOn1 pic.twitter.com/C9bt6xIUPT
— Solana (@solana) April 6, 2023
Apart from compressing digital artworks, the new tech provides a superior way to store data on the network. Wong said that the tech uses a data structure known as Merkle tree that’s known to offer compression capabilities without losing the verifiability of compressed data.
Decentralization and Security Intact
According to the Solana tech head, the compression leads to a small amount of data being stored on Solana and doesn’t sacrifice the network’s decentralization and security. The technology has already received adoption from projects building on the Solana blockchain such as Helium and Crossmint.
The crypto community has also embraced the upgrade terming it a game changer and comes roughly eight months after the network suffered a massive hack that saw thousands of hot wallets emptied.
Although there’s a positive initial crypto community response, it’s yet to be seen whether the new tech will help position Solana as a Web 3.0 hub.
