Data Flow

Under the Hood

The Data Anchor leverages a modified version of state compression.

For each dataset, the module hashes individual elements and generates a commitment over the whole set. This commitment is saved in Solana’s accounts space, while a compressed form of the original data is stored in Solana’s ledger history. If longer term storage is needed beyond the ledger’s short lifespan of a few days, the module supports external storage providers such as IPFS, Light Protocol’s archival nodes, or self-hosted cloud databases.

It’s easy to check the presence or absence of any data element by submitting a Merkle proof on-chain. The data is temporary and can be removed after a specified period or event, e.g. X time has elapsed or Y event has occurred, which puts a maximum time bound on the elements. Since Solana requires rent for accounts, removing outdated data allows rent to be reclaimed and prevents the lock-up of increasing amounts of capital over time.

To help teams plan their integration, here’s a snapshot of current upload performance and cost across supported Solana RPCs:

RPC Endpoint	Data Bandwidth (KB/s)	Cost per MB (lamports)
devnet	80.2	6M
mainnet	145	6M
mainnet-staked	150	6M

Uploads are priced at a flat 6 million lamports per byte, with no change based on priority fees or network congestion.

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Glossary

Term	Definition	Notes
Namespace	A single data collection, dependent on the domain	e.g. Alice’s rollup, Bob’s rewards
Blober	Generates Merkle proofs over incoming data and is unique to each namespace
Blob	Each logical unit within a namespace or data collection	e.g. Alice’s rollup has a blob for every rollup block
Chunk	A blob may be split into multiple chunks as part of the upload process to Solana so that each transaction stays within size limits	(Internal implementation detail, irrelevant for the end user)