Light Protocol: ZK compression technology reduces the storage cost of developers' compressed token accounts by 5000 times

Odaily Planet Daily News Solana ecosystem developer Light Protocol and Helius Labs announced a new scaling solution using ‘ZK Compression’ technology for Solana on-chain applications. ZK compression works through the process of state compression, allowing developers to use Solana’s cheaper ledger space to store certain types of data. According to the ZK Compression documentation, the ‘hash’ or fingerprint of off-chain data is stored on-chain for verification using ‘sparse state trees’. Light Protocol said that ZK compression will allow developers to store 100 compressed token accounts at a price of about one in 400,000 (usually costing around 0.2 SOL), a drop of 5000 times in price. The document shows that the compressed PDA account can be up to 160 times cheaper. The protocol uses small zero-knowledge proofs (validity proofs) to ensure the integrity of the compressed state. (The Block) Yesterday, Helius CEO Mert Mumtaz announced in a post on X that the team is integrating ZK compression into Solana, which will be done directly on L1 without the need for L2. This move will greatly enhance the scalability of the Solana network, allowing developers to build and expand directly on-chain without leaving the network. In addition, it can significantly reduce costs. For example, the current airdrop of 1 million users is expected to cost more than $260,000, while introducing ZK compression can reduce the cost to $50, a decrease of 5200 times.