Solana Begins Phased 90% Reduction in Token Account Storage Costs

Anza, Solana's core developer team, announced the activation of the first of five planned features. This development will reduce data storage costs on the blockchain by 90%. The changes will primarily benefit companies working with stablecoins and payment systems, which have become one of the fastest-growing use cases for the network.

For developers creating a large number of token accounts and for the users they onboard, this change now results in lower fixed capital costs, which had remained unchanged for many years.

Timing is of great significance. Over the past year, Solana has been working to establish itself as a payments network, not just a platform for speculation. However, rent remains one of the obstacles to achieving the goal—mass account creation. Cheaper accounts allow fintech companies and payment systems to more efficiently cover deposits for their users.

Solana Begins Phased Reduction of Token Account Costs

The reform is being implemented by SIMD-0437, a proposal written by Igor Duović of Anza. It reduces the constant `lamports_per_byte`, which sets the minimum account balance, from 6960 to 696.

As indicated on the Solana Foundation's update page, this factor was set many years ago and has remained unchanged since. Instead of reflecting the actual storage costs incurred by validators, the storage price has been tied to the price of SOL.

The reduction will be phased in over five stages: first from 6960 to 6333, then to 5080, followed by 2575, 1322, and finally 696. Testnet activation is occurring at the first stage, representing an approximately 9% reduction.

Subsequent stages will need to be activated separately based on system development information provided by the core developer teams.

Why Deposit Calculations Are Important for Payments

Solana's rent is not a fee. The Foundation describes it as a fully refundable deposit, which is returned when an account is closed. The change in SIMD-0437 concerns the size of this initial deposit.

Previously, the rent-exempt amount required for a standard SPL token account was $0.159, but after all five stages are activated, it will be just $0.0159—ten times less.

At larger scales, the savings become significant. According to Foundation estimates, if a payment company needed to create one million token accounts, it would cost them $159,000 today, and $15,900 after all reductions. This amount can mean the difference between a business's success and failure, determining whether it can afford to pay for account creation for a large number of users.

Cryptopolitan reported that payment volume on Solana grew by 755.3% in 2025, allowing the network to become a settlement layer for stablecoins issued by brands like Western Union, PayPal, and Fiserv. The reduction in rent directly contributes to this growth by lowering the cost of connecting each new payment system user to the network.

Safeguards Built-In to Prevent State Bloat

The phased approach aims to limit the risk that cheaper storage will lead to a sharp increase in blockchain data that each validator must store and index.

A sixth feature gate could restore the constant value to 6960 if issues arise. An accompanying proposal, SIMD-0392, also allows for rent to be increased again later without disrupting existing accounts.

The reduction is backed by published analysis from Solana Foundation's Umberto Natale. His simulation showed that even after a tenfold reduction, an attack aimed at exhausting the current storage capacity would still require approximately $17.2 million in locked capital. He concluded that the 90% reduction does not pose a systemic risk to the cluster.

How Will the Project Develop Further?

The rent reduction is included in Agave 4.2, Anza's validator release, recommended for mainnet deployment in August 2026. The release also features larger 4096-byte transactions and a halving of slot time to 200 milliseconds.

According to information from the Foundation, mainnet feature activation for the release began the week of August 17th. Existing accounts continue to operate unchanged and can simply reduce their balance to the new minimum level.

The next step is straightforward: each of the remaining four gates must undergo risk assessment before the full 90% reduction in Solana rent becomes available on mainnet.

The 90% figure refers to the fully completed deployment, not an immediate 90% cut. Each stage of feature implementation is independent, allowing Solana to monitor state growth before proceeding to the next reduction stage. The Foundation also describes a sixth fallback gate that can restore the original value of 6960 if problems arise.

The Solana Foundation uses a price of $0.159 for a standard SPL token account, which decreases to $0.0159 after the full 10x reduction. For 1 million accounts, this equates to $159,000 → $15,900.

This is a refundable, rent-exempt deposit, not a transaction fee. The deposit remains locked while the account exists and can be recovered upon its closure.