Compressed NFTs are a type of non-fungible token designed to reduce the storage and transaction costs of NFTs on the Solana blockchain. With the increasing adoption of NFTs, developers are struggling to minimize the storage and minting costs of these digital assets. To overcome these challenges, Solana introduced compressed NFTs (cNFTs).

CNFTs leverage state compression technology to store data more efficiently on Solana. Unlike traditional NFTs, cNFTs use Merkle trees to optimize data storage. This significantly reduces storage costs and increases transaction speeds.

Although this technology is still in its infancy, it accounts for the majority of NFTs minted on Solana. In March 2023, Crossmint conducted the first large-scale minting of compressed NFTs on Solana, reducing the cost of minting 300,000 NFTs using the traditional method from $74,000 to less than $200.

Key features of CNFTs include cost-effectiveness, scalability, and on-chain and off-chain flexibility. These features make cNFTs stand out in the blockchain ecosystem. How do you think cNFTs will shape the NFT market in the future? Share your thoughts in the comments.