What are compressed NFT's?

• Compressed NFTs are a new type of NFT (Non-Fungible Token) that uses on-chain compression to lower the cost of minting and storing digital assets. Unlike traditional NFTs that store their data on-chain, compressed NFTs store their state (metadata, owner, etc.) in a Merkle tree. This means that detailed account data is not stored on-chain but in data stores managed by RPC providers.
• By storing the detailed account data off-chain, the cost of storing and updating NFTs on the blockchain is significantly reduced, as the amount of data that needs to be stored on the blockchain is minimized. This is one of the key benefits of compression for NFTs.

What is a merkle tree?

• A merkle tree is a binary tree where each leaf node is a hash of data, and each non-leaf node is a hash of its child leaf nodes.

This dashboard is divided into two tabs:

1. Activity: This tab contains the activity of the bubble gum and metaplex contracts, this includes transactions, users, nft's minted, collections minted. From the research question it answers the question of : Which projects have minted the most NFTs and what have been their use cases so far.?

2. Chains Comparison: This tab shows what the cost of minting compressed NFT's will be on polygon and ethereum, it also answers the question of, How do you see this trend developing in the near future.? and also, Is this "only possible on Solana" right now.?.

To accurately answer the questions I had to come up with some formulas to calculate the cost of minting NFT's based on the already established formulas by the metaplex protocol: Cost of 1 million NFTs = 5 SOL Cost of 1 NFT = (5 SOL) / (1 million NFTs) = 0.000005 SOL To mint 500 NFTs: Cost of 1 million NFTs = 5 SOL Cost of 500 NFTs = (500 / 1 million) * 5 SOL = 0.025 SOL, also, I used a compressed NFT calculator (Link can be found in resources).

• I used the ACCOUNT COMPRESSION: cmtDvXumGCrqC1Age74AVPhSRVXJMd8PJS91L8KbNCK and METAPLEX BUBBLE GUM metaqbxxUerdq28cj1RbAWkYQm3ybzjb6a8bt518x1s PROGRAM ID's to filter transactions and event logs to arrive at the data on this dashboard.

• Basically the collector's request is executed through the account compression program id: cmtDvXumGCrqC1Age74AVPhSRVXJMd8PJS91L8KbNCK

• It then goes to this Metaplex bubble gum program id: BGUMAp9Gq7iTEuizy4pqaxsTyUCBK68MDfK752saRPUY

• In case of any data loss, the off-chain state of compressed NFTs can be recovered by replaying transactions

• Additionally, the Metaplex Read API standardizes NFT data and delivers it without relying on resource-intensive methods, improving reliability, speed, and lowering hardware costs over time

RESOURCES

• https://dev.to/apollotoday/minting-a-tree-for-compressed-nfts-13n7
• https://www.metaplex.com/posts/expanding-digital-assets-with-compression-for-nfts
• https://github.com/metaplex-foundation/metaplex-program-library/tree/master/bubblegum/program
• https://github.com/solana-labs/solana-program-library/tree/master/account-compression
• https://docs.metaplex.com/programs/compression/
• https://compressed.app/