Solana begins cutting testnet account rent costs

Solana has begun work to lower per-byte account storage costs on testnet, with the first of five phases now activated, according to Anza, the Solana network’s validator client. Anza said the full rollout will cut the per-byte cost 90% to 696 lamports from 6,960 lamports, while the deposit required to keep token accounts rent-exempt will fall to about $0.016 from roughly $0.16. Anza added the sharp reduction in account creation and maintenance costs is expected to lower deployment costs for Solana-based services as well.