Rent Sponsorship
How does rent-exemption sponsorship work ?
How does rent-exemption sponsorship work ?
Rent sponsorship is a built-in feature of the Light SDK’s that sponsors rent-exemption for all account types to reduce creation cost: mints, token accounts, and PDAs.
This is dealt with under the hood in a way that doesn’t disrupt the UX of what your users are used to with SPL-token.
Rent-exemption: sponsored by a rent sponsor PDA.Every Solana account requires a rent-exempt balance in SOL upon creation.
A rent sponsor PDA by Light Protocol pays the rent-exemption cost for the account so account creators never lock up SOL for rent.Top-ups: paid by the fee payer.The
feePayer on the transaction bumps a small virtual rent balance (766 lamports by default)
on each write to keep the account active (hot balance).
If you’re building a wallet or dApp, set your application as the fee payer and your users never pay rent or top-ups.“Cold” accounts virtual rent balance below threshold (eg 24h without write bump) get auto-compressed.
The cold account’s state is cryptographically preserved on the Solana ledger.
Users can load a cold account into hot state in-flight when using the account again.
Light Token Program
What is light-token?
What is light-token?
Light token is a high-performance token standard that is functionally equivalent to SPL, but stores mint and token accounts more efficiently. This reduces account creation cost while being more CU efficient than SPL on hot paths.Creation Cost
CU Performance
Can I start using the Light Token Standard?
Can I start using the Light Token Standard?
Yes! Light Token is deployed on devnet — start integrating today with our Quickstart and Toolkits.For production on mainnet, use Compressed Tokens V1, which are live and supported by leading wallets such as Phantom and Backpack.
Do I need to change my client code significantly?
Do I need to change my client code significantly?
No. The
light-token-sdk methods are a superset of the SPL-token API.
Find examples below.| Light | SPL | |
|---|---|---|
| Get/Create ATA | getOrCreateAtaInterface() | getOrCreateAssociatedTokenAccount() |
| Derive ATA | getAssociatedTokenAddressInterface() | getAssociatedTokenAddress() |
| Transfer | transferInterface() | transferChecked() |
| Get Balance | getAtaInterface() | getAccount() |
Can light-token accounts hold SPL tokens?
Can light-token accounts hold SPL tokens?
Yes, light-token accounts can hold tokens from light, SPL, or Token 2022 mints.SPL tokens can be deposited into light-token accounts and withdrawn back to SPL token accounts via the
transferInterface method.Do light-token accounts require rent?
Do light-token accounts require rent?
The token standard pays rent-exemption cost for you. To prevent griefing, “rent” is paid over time to keep an account in memory. This is dealt with under the hood in a way that doesn’t disrupt the UX of what your users are used to with SPL-token.
- A rent sponsor PDA by Light Protocol pays the rent-exemption cost for the account.
- Transaction fee payers bump a virtual rent balance when writing to the account, which keeps the account “hot”.
- “Cold” accounts virtual rent balance below threshold (eg 24h without write bump) get auto-compressed.
- The cold account’s state is cryptographically preserved on the Solana ledger. Users can load a cold account into hot state in-flight when using the account again.
What happens if my light-token account runs out of rent?
What happens if my light-token account runs out of rent?
The account is automatically compressed.
Your tokens are cryptographically preserved as a compressed token account (rent-free).
The account is loaded into hot account state in-flight when someone interacts with it again.
Does light-token support extensions?
Does light-token support extensions?
Extensions are under development. Additional extensions can be requested.Coming soon:
- MetadataPointer
- TokenMetadata
- InterestBearingConfig
- GroupPointer
- GroupMemberPointer
- TokenGroup
- TokenGroupMember
- MintCloseAuthority
- TransferFeeConfig
- DefaultAccountState
- PermanentDelegate
- TransferHook
- Pausable
- ConfidentialTransferMint
- ConfidentialTransferFeeConfig
- ConfidentialMintBurn
What is the difference between light-token and compressed token?
What is the difference between light-token and compressed token?
- light-token: Solana account that holds token balances of light-mints, SPL or Token 22 mints.
- Compressed token: Compressed account storing token data. Rent-free, for storage and distribution.
PDA Accounts
What is a Light-PDA?
What is a Light-PDA?
A standard Solana PDA with sponsored rent-exemption. Seeds, bump derivation, and
invoke_signed work the same way. Your instruction handlers for reads, updates, and closes don’t change.What is a compressed PDA?
What is a compressed PDA?
A compressed account with a derived address. Programs invoke the Light System program instead of the System program to create and update compressed accounts. Compressed PDAs are always compressed and require a validity proof for every read and write.
When should I use Light-PDA vs compressed PDA?
When should I use Light-PDA vs compressed PDA?
PDA accounts overview
Do I need to rewrite my Anchor program to use Light-PDA?
Do I need to rewrite my Anchor program to use Light-PDA?
No. Add
compression_info: CompressionInfo to your state struct, derive LightAccount and LightAccounts, and add #[light_program] above #[program]. Your instruction logic for reads, updates, and closes stays the same. The client prepends a load instruction if the account is cold.Light-PDA guide
Do Light-PDAs require rent?
Do Light-PDAs require rent?
The SDK sponsors rent-exemption for your Light-PDAs. After extended inactivity, the account compresses to cold state and the rent-exempt lamports return to the rent sponsor. The common path (hot accounts) has no extra overhead.
- A rent sponsor PDA by Light Protocol pays the rent-exemption cost for the account.
- Transaction fee payers bump a virtual rent balance when writing to the account, which keeps the account “hot”.
- “Cold” accounts virtual rent balance below threshold (eg 24h without write bump) get auto-compressed.
- The cold account’s state is cryptographically preserved on the Solana ledger. Users can load a cold account into hot state in-flight when using the account again.
What happens if my Light-PDA runs out of rent?
What happens if my Light-PDA runs out of rent?
The account data is cryptographically preserved in compressed state. The client prepends a load instruction when someone interacts with it again — your program code doesn’t change. Reads, updates, and closes work the same way regardless of whether the account is hot or cold.