Compressed NFTs are a type of non-fungible token (NFT) designed to reduce the cost of storing and transacting with NFTs on the Solana blockchain.

With the increasing adoption of NFTs, developers face difficulties maximizing storage and lowering minting costs for these digital assets. The Solana blockchain introduced compressed NFTs (cNFTs) to overcome such challenges.

CNFTs are a newer type of non-fungible token that leverages state compression technology to store data more efficiently on Solana. Unlike traditional NFTs, which store all the token's metadata directly onchain or via external links (like IPFS), cNFTs use Merkle trees to optimize data storage.

In simpler terms, while regular NFTs store individual ownership and metadata records for each token onchain, cNFTs group these records in a highly compressed format. This significantly reduces storage costs and improves transaction speeds.

Although the technology is still in its infancy, it accounts for most NFTs minted on Solana.