The Light Token Program

Light token is a high-performance token standard that reduces the cost of mint and token accounts by 200x.

Note: This page is for the new Light Token Program Beta. For production use today, use Compressed Tokens, which are live on Solana Mainnet and supported by leading wallets such as Phantom & Backpack.

Creation Cost

	Light-Token	SPL-Token
Mint Account	0.00001 SOL	0.0015 SOL
Token Account	0.00001 SOL	0.002 SOL

CU Performance

	Light-Token	SPL-Token
ATA Creation	4,348	14,194
Transfer	312	4,645
Transfer (rent-free)	1,885	4,645

Mint Accounts

Light-mint accounts represent a unique mint and optionally can store token-metadata. Functionally equivalent to SPL mints.

Token Accounts

Light-token accounts can hold balances from any light, SPL, or Token-2022 mint, without the need to pay rent-exemption.

Quickstart

1. Installation

   npm

   Install packages in your working directory:

   npm install @lightprotocol/stateless.js@alpha \
               @lightprotocol/compressed-token@alpha
   

   Install the CLI globally:

   npm install -g @lightprotocol/zk-compression-cli@alpha
   

   yarn

   Install packages in your working directory:

   yarn add @lightprotocol/stateless.js@alpha \
            @lightprotocol/compressed-token@alpha
   

   Install the CLI globally:

   yarn global add @lightprotocol/zk-compression-cli@alpha
   

   pnpm

   Install packages in your working directory:

   pnpm add @lightprotocol/stateless.js@alpha \
            @lightprotocol/compressed-token@alpha
   

   Install the CLI globally:

   pnpm add -g @lightprotocol/zk-compression-cli@alpha
   
2. Get Started

   Mint tokens in under 3 minutes.

Integration Toolkits

for Stablecoin Payments	Process payments and transfers using light-token
for Wallets	Allow your users to store and swap tokens more efficiently
for Streaming Mints	Stream light-mint accounts
for Indexing Tokens	Index light-token accounts

Cookbook

Create Mint	Create light-mints with token metadata
Create ATA	Create associated light-token accounts
Create Token Account	Create light-token accounts
Mint To	Mint tokens to light-token accounts
Close Token Account	Close and reclaim rent
Transfer	Transfer between light-token and SPL accounts
Wrap & Unwrap	Convert between SPL/T22 and light-token

Next Steps

Explore Frequently Answered Questions