TLDR Solana is about to overcome two major hurdles. One is a hurdle it mostly faces itself: namely the ballooning amount of data on Solana’s blockchain. Zk-compression will alleviate this issue. A second hurdle is one of adoption, which all chains face. How to bring crypto to the masses? Blinks is a step toward that goal: users can perform transactions on Solana directly from social media posts.
Brace yourself because we’ll first talk about Zk-compression. Zk-what?
Zk-Compression Saves Data Storage Space
Zk-compression is a new primitive built on Solana that enables developers to build applications at scale.
ZK stands for zero-knowledge. Zero-knowledge proofs. With a zero-knowledge proof I can prove to you that I have certain data without revealing the data itself.
Imagine that I can prove that I am the legitimate owner of a valid passport, without actually showing my passport to the clerk at customs. In the same way, zero-knowledge proof technology enables cryptographic algorithms to verify claims regarding the possession of data without having to reveal the data.
Importantly: it saves data storage space. In the passport analogy, the proof I show to the clerk contains much less data than the passport itself would. To bring it a bit closer to home, as a way of illustrating this, imagine you have a notebook with a list of 100 transactions. Instead of showing the entire notebook to prove you have the transactions, you create a summary (the zero-knowledge proof) that others can use to verify your notebook’s transactions without seeing every detail.
Zero-knowledge proofs in crypto are important for two reasons: privacy and data compression.
Now, Solana has taken a big step in innovation by launching Zero-Knowledge (ZK) compression. Announced on June 21, it will drastically reduce costs and improve scalability for developers.
Why is this so important? Well, the Solana blockchain is a behemoth. Despite the fact it has existed only 4 years compared to Bitcoin’s 15 years, it’s already storing 1000x more data. The amount of transactions per second is similarly a few orders of magnitude larger: Solana block production time is measured in fractions of a second, not minutes, like Bitcoin.
Cost Reduction
As you can see from the data shared by Solana, compressed accounts are orders of magnitude cheaper compared to current accounts.
What does state costs mean? State costs on Solana refer to the expenses associated with storing and maintaining state data on the blockchain. The cost reduction is especially huge for token accounts (token accounts are regular Solana accounts. A Program Derived Address (PDA) account is a type of account on the Solana blockchain that is associated with and owned by a program rather than a specific user or account. Whereas a token account is controlled by an individual, a PDA account is installed and managed by a program, such as a DeFi application).
In summary, zk-compression on Solana uses zero-knowledge proofs to reduce the amount of data stored on the blockchain, making it faster and more efficient while maintaining privacy and security.
Benefits of zk-compression
- Reduced Storage Needs: Storing less data on the blockchain reduces costs and increases efficiency.
- Faster Transactions: With less data to handle, transactions can…
Erik started as a freelance writer around the time Satoshi was brewing on the whitepaper.
As a crypto investor, he is class of 2020. More of a holder than a trader, but never shy to experiment with new protocols.
