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As the NFT market has witnessed a noticeable rise in the past few years, it attracts a wide range of crypto communities to dive deeper into the sector. NFTs allow creators to tokenize their digital art and sell it as a unique and one-of-a-kind item on the blockchain. However, the high cost of minting and storing NFTs has been a barrier to entry for many creators and buyers. To address this issue, several blockchains are working to bring down the cost of minting and storing NFTs on-chain, and Solana is one of them. In a recent press release, Solana announced the introduction of State Compression, which will focus on accelerating NFT storage and lowering minting costs.
Minting 1 Million NFTs On Solana Now Costs $113
Solana, one of the fastest-growing blockchain ecosystems, has recently introduced a new feature that will revolutionize the way non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are stored and minted. The new feature, called State Compression, aims to make the storage of NFTs more affordable while reducing the cost of minting. With unparalleled speed, minimal environmental impact, composability, and already low gas fees, Solana’s state compression innovation is set to be a game-changer in the world of blockchain technology.
1/ Solana's low fees have made it an industry leader. But thanks to a recent innovation from teams across the ecosystem, it's about to cost even less.
— Solana (@solana) April 6, 2023
Introducing state compression, a new way to store data on Solana that lowers cost significantly. https://t.co/0baMJ0vOn1
Several blockchain firms have joined forces with the Solana Foundation to reduce the cost of storing NFTs on the blockchain. Currently, it costs approximately 1,2000 SOL (equivalent to $253,680) to store 1 million NFTs on the Solana blockchain. However, with the introduction of state compression, a new technology that utilizes Merkle trees, the associated transaction costs are expected to drop significantly to around five SOLs (approximately $113). This move is expected to make NFT minting and storage more accessible and affordable for creators and collectors.
The concept of state compression originated from the collaborative efforts of Solana Labs and Metaplex developers, with the aim of providing gasless experiences for users on the Solana blockchain.
Several Blockchain Platforms Adopt Solana’s State Compression
Solana’s state compression technology is already being widely adopted across its ecosystem. Companies like Crossmint, specializing in NFT and API tooling, have integrated state compression to drive deeper customer loyalty for global firms. Dialect, on the other hand, is using the technology to cover the minting cost of NFT stickers for thousands of users by leveraging compressed NFTs.
Instead of storing a large amount of NFT data on the blockchain, a compressed version of the data is stored on-chain. The remaining data can be accessed off-chain through Solana’s remote procedure call (RPC) providers. By reducing the size of data stored on the blockchain, Solana’s State Compression technology can significantly reduce the cost of minting and storing NFTs. This makes it more affordable for creators to participate in the market and offers them a new way to monetize their work.
Jon Wong, a technical lead on the ecosystem, said, “How compression works is that it takes a large set of data and summarizes it into what is called a fingerprint using a data structure called Merkle tree.”
While state compression has a broad range of potential use cases for storing data on-chain, its initial implementation is focused on compressed NFTs. These NFTs have the same functionality as traditional NFTs but can be stored at a significantly reduced cost.
Solana Labs and Metaplex have developed state compression technology in collaboration with Helius, Triton, and SimpleHash, with support from Phantom, Solflare, and the Solana Foundation. By using Merkle trees, creators can store compressed NFTs on-chain, with updates recorded directly in the Solana ledger, while retaining the security and decentralization of Solana’s base layer. The technology is a cross-ecosystem effort and demonstrates the industry’s push toward more affordable and accessible Web3 experiences.