Solana · Light Protocol · live from chain

Accounts without rent.

ZK compression stores account data in the ledger instead of in rent-paying accounts, and keeps only a hash on chain. Here is how much it is used right now, and what it would cost you.

Light System txs00,000
last 24h
Compressed-token txs000
last 24h
Token account rent0.000
SOL, live from RPC
Median compute000k
CU per compressed-token tx
Live activity

The four programs behind it.

Transactions that touched each Light Protocol program, counted from recent signatures. Busy programs are extrapolated from the observed rate and marked "est".

Counting recent signatures…

Recent compressed-token transactions

The latest 15, parsed from their program logs. "Called by" is the top-level program that invoked compression.

Reading transactions…
Cost calculator

Regular vs compressed.

Rent for regular accounts is read live from Solana. Compressed costs use Light Protocol's published fee defaults, which you can edit. Rent is refundable when you close an account; compressed fees are not.

e.g. one token account per airdrop recipient
Fee assumptions
how many accounts you batch per tx (both sides)
charged when a tx writes to a state tree
pays for the next state tree when this one fills

Regular accounts

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    Compressed accounts

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      Estimates only. Real costs change with priority fees, batching and protocol fee updates. Check Light Protocol's documentation before you budget a large drop.

      How it works

      Hash on chain, data in the ledger.

      01 · STATE TREES

      Accounts become leaves

      Each compressed account is hashed into a Merkle tree owned by the Account Compression program. Only the tree root sits in an on-chain account.

      02 · LEDGER DATA

      Data rides in transactions

      The full account data is emitted in the transaction itself. Indexers such as Photon read the ledger and rebuild every account.

      03 · VALIDITY PROOFS

      Prove it exists

      To use a compressed account you send a small zero-knowledge proof that it is in the tree. The Light System program verifies it.

      04 · FORESTERS

      Keeping trees tidy

      Registered forester nodes empty the queues and roll over full trees. The rollover fee each new account pays funds this.

      Good fit
      • Airdrops and rewards to many wallets
      • Per-user state that is written rarely
      • Large numbers of small balances
      Trade-offs
      • Each use needs a proof from an indexer, so apps depend on Photon or similar
      • More compute per transaction (see the live median above)
      • Most DEXs need the token decompressed back to a normal account first
      • Not a privacy tool: "ZK" here proves validity. Balances, owners and transfers stay fully public in the ledger.