ZK Compression Is Now Live on Solana, Promising 10000x Scale Improvements

The Solana blockchain network has rolled out a new feature called ZK Compression, developed through a collaboration between Light Protocol and Helius Labs.

Solana blockchain has unveiled a new primitive dubbed ZK Compression, developed in collaboration with Light Protocol and Helius Labs and designed to slash on-chain storage costs by 99%.

The solution, which was launched on June 21, utilizes zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs to compress on-chain data. As a result, developers can now theoretically store crucial data on Solana’s more cost-effective ledger space without sacrificing security or performance.

The technology leverages sparse state trees to store a hash of off-chain data on-chain for verification, ensuring data integrity and大幅 slashing storage costs.

According to Light Protocol, ZK Compression can reduce the cost of storing 100 compressed token accounts to around 0.0004 SOL, down from the usual 0.2 SOL — a 5000x reduction.

For large-scale operations, such as airdrops to a million users, costs could drop from $260,000 to just $50.

ZK Compression technology is a key primitive in the modular scaling stack, enabling large-scale applications to be built on Solana.

“ZK Compression is a massive primitive for scaling Solana L1. We’re getting 1 step closer to building The Financial Computer,” Helius CEO Mert Mumtaz highlighted the huge cost reduction and scalability gains brought forth by ZK compression.

“Modular scaling is here. Solana L1 is scaling,” Mumtaz added.

Solana Head of Strategy Austin Federa pointed out that the innovation tackles the high costs of on-chain account storage.

“ZK Compression offers similar cost-saving benefits for tokens and accounts as cNFTs did for NFTs, enabling the development of products that will attract more users to Solana,” Federa noted.

Several members of the Ethereum community have expressed criticism of the new primitive. ZKsync founder Alex Gluchowski commented on X:

“The whole monolithic Solana thesis is gone at once. Impressive. Meanwhile, ZKsync has been quietly building asynchronously composable ZK future for Ethereum. Big reveal this week.”

Ethereum investor Ryan Berckmans slammed the announcement for not labeling the new approach as a Layer 2 network, calling it “unethical BS” in an X post.

“Their new product is actually an L2. L2s are a winning model,” Berckmans stated.

Similarly, other crypto community members, such as Adam Cochran, claimed that the Solana compression tool is essentially an L2, but its developers are presenting it differently.

“No matter how loudly Mert shouts, and slings dumb ad homs, compression is an L2,” Cochran remarked, adding that one day the Solana crowd will realize what they’ve built is a good L2 feature.

In response, Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko defended ZK Compression, acknowledging its L2-like features but stressing its unique aspects.

“It’s more like an L2 without a security council multisig, chain ID switching, a governance token, or an external sequencer. Solana validators still get all the transaction fees. It’s like an L2 without all the things that people complain about L2s,” Anatoly hit back.