Howdy!
All who celebrate Christmas in July wish you a Merry (Good?) Christmas. Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates it. Although I am in the minority, I still want to celebrate Christmas here. Who would object to a second holiday?
Your email-reading should be merry, bright and cheerful. Anyways:
What exactly is zk Compression?
Blockchains become more expensive to maintain and manage as their size increases.
Blockworks Research estimates that several million Solana account are created each day. Some of these Solana accounts might not be used by anyone, but the developers and blockchain users are still responsible for the costs of this “kitty”. “state” — basically the most updated look at things like how much currency is in different accounts. It is costly to store state because it must be available to thousands of validators at any given time.
Solana’s solution to keeping track of all the data is called “compression” — or putting a unique string of letters and numbers called a hash on the blockchain’s state space, rather than posting all of the data itself.
The latest example of this technique is zk-compression, a tool that Light Protocol and Helius are developing. It allows Solana to be compressed while being included in layer-1. The tool stores state data in Solana’s ledger, which costs less than the state.
A successful rollout could make rent much cheaper on the blockchain — by an order of up to 5,000 times, Light claims.
The infrastructure was launched yesterday on Solana’s development network, allowing developers to test Solana transactions. Swen Schneferjohann is the co-founder of Light Protocol and told me his goal was to get the technology onto the mainnet in time for the Solana Breakpoint Conference.
Zk compression is an evolution of compressed NFTs, which were introduced to Solana in 2023 — and initially developed during Instagram’s now-defunct NFT phase. This technology converts the onchain NFT to a hash. It makes assets much more affordable to use.
Drip can now use compressed NFTs to perform tasks such as minting videos on Solana. The founder of the company is also excited by zk compression.
“Account rent is really the last hurdle to making the cost of storing data and interacting on-chain with Solana equivalent to Web2. I’m very excited to see the core developer community continuing to iterate on cost and speed,” Vibhu norby, founder of Drip said via email.
It is important to note that the word “you” means “you”. “zk” In zk, zero-knowledge means that the compressed state is accurate and can be verified without revealing its contents. Privacy-conscious users may find this feature particularly useful.
“In a time where the FTC is investigating larger companies such as Mastercard and Chase for surveillance pricing, consumers are now looking for an alternative to keep their information safe while performing transactions,” Intuition co-founder Billy Luedtke wrote about zk compression via email.
Noteworthy is the expression “zk compression” Light and Helius, when introducing this new infrastructure, coined the phrase. This created a small semantic dispute with Ethereum, who claimed that they had in fact created layer-2s by using another name.
In the end, it won’t really matter. This isn’t as important.
Zero In
The tokens have dropped in price from their early runs.
The chart, posted anonymously by Slorg, shows that tokens are generally effected when they reach their highest levels. Almost a third have removed their X comments about these projects. Even Iggy Azalea who posts constantly about MOTHER has not been spared.
MarginFi, a newly launched platform, allows users to leverage short Solana tokens. After looking at the chart, this may prove to be a useful tool.
The Pulse
It’s not clear where everyone else has buried their seed phrases. Mine is in an abandoned theme park. It’s not bad at all. The days when I dressed up as a pirate ghost to keep meddling children away from my gold might be over, now that abstracted account data from Privy is becoming more common.
Privy aims to simplify the integration of Blockchain functionalities in various Web2 or Web3 ecosystems. This will make it easier for developers onboard users that may not have interacted with Blockchain before. In the past, web3 integration required developers to navigate multiple tools and complicated systems. For example, keeping seed phrases secure and managing different wallets.
Although these methods were common among older coiners such as myself, it was a nuisance for the newcomers. Privy’s embedded wallets take a more intuitive approach, allowing users to log in with familiar methods like email or social media — whether they already have a wallet or not.
Privy is a worthy investment, with the likes Paradigm Capital and Sequoia Capital. It has also partnered up with Ethereum-based projects such as OpenSea, Friend.tech and Friend.tech.
Privy added support for Solana yesterday. This allows developers to embed Solana Wallets in web and mobile apps. Users have the option to choose between building exclusively with Solana, or providing both Solana addresses and Ethereum address for a multi-chain experience.
The community has welcomed the launch. Solana’s Twitter account welcomes Privy, and Privy Developer Osker Li shares his excitement at expanding beyond Ethereum into Solana. Caitlinxyz, Paradigm’s investment partner commented. “The world is converging towards self-custodial wallet logins… excited for Solana devs to now have access to Privy’s embedded wallets.” The sentiment of @zjbrenner was also echoed. “Huge news! There’s also some alpha in this post that I had no idea about!”
Followers of @solcostcommember were told by the member: “Can’t wait to see the things people build powered by Privy,” Tensor labs’ @SpeeksX has been acknowledged. “Privy have been awesome to work with.” With the hashtag rallying cry, the Solana Foundation’s @therealchaseeb has captured the hopes and dreams of the local community. “world domination”!
The One Good DM
This is a message from Swen SchaeferjohannThe co-founders of Light Protocol:
Did you know that over $140 billion dollars in Bitcoin, or about 20% of the entire Bitcoin supply, is currently locked in inaccessible wallets? Or maybe you have lost access to your Bitcoin wallet? Don’t let those funds remain out of reach! AI Seed Phrase Finder is here to help you regain access effortlessly. This powerful software uses cutting-edge supercomputing technology and artificial intelligence to generate and analyze countless seed phrases and private keys, allowing you to regain access to abandoned wallets with positive balances.
