Anza Activates SIMD-0437 Step 1 on Testnet, Beginning Phased 90% Cut to Solana

Anza confirmed on X that Step 1 of SIMD-0437 activated on Solana testnet on August 27, beginning a phased program that targets a 90% reduction in the cost of creating and maintaining SPL token accounts on-chain. Step 1 is the first of five independent feature gates, each requiring a separate activation after network participants review state-growth data from the previous step.

The proposal was authored by Igor Durovic of Anza and changes a single protocol constant: lamports_per_byte, the rate at which on-chain storage is priced. Step 1 moves that constant from 6,960 to 6,333. Across all five steps, it falls to 696, a tenfold reduction.

What the Five Steps Look Like

The reduction unfolds in stages rather than a single drop. Each step has its own feature gate and does not trigger automatically; Anza and network participants evaluate state growth before the next gate activates.

The five lamports_per_byte targets are 6,333, 5,080, 2,575, 1,322, and 696. By the final step, a standard SPL token account's rent-exempt deposit (the SOL balance locked as a refundable security bond while the account exists) falls from roughly $0.159 to $0.016. At the scale of onboarding one million users, that shifts the total deposit requirement from approximately $159,000 to $15,900, according to Solana Foundation analysis.

Why the Phased Approach

Cheaper storage lowers the cost of keeping data on-chain indefinitely, which could accelerate state growth if demand responds strongly to the price change. The SIMD-0437 proposal structures the reduction as five independent gates precisely to generate real-world data at each level before proceeding.

Research by Solana Foundation analyst Umberto Natale found that short-term account-creation rates are driven primarily by protocol demand rather than cost sensitivity, and concluded the reduction poses no systemic risk at projected state-growth rates. Gross daily state demand runs at roughly 10 GiB, against net growth of approximately 0.3 GB once account closures are factored in; about 75.5% of accounts close within the same transaction they open.

A sixth fallback gate sits alongside the five reduction gates and can restore the original 6,960 value if state bloat accelerates beyond projections at any point during the rollout.

What Cheaper Token Accounts Mean for App Developers

Rent on Solana SOL$108.15-2.8% is a refundable security bond returned when the account is closed, not a transaction fee. The reduction cuts the capital locked up in holding token accounts, not the per-transaction cost of using them.

For applications that provision accounts on behalf of users, a common pattern in consumer-facing products, the change makes covering deposits far more practical. A project managing 100,000 active user accounts would need roughly $15,900 locked in deposits under current rates; at the end of the five-step reduction, that falls to around $1,590.

SIMD-0437 is part of the Agave 4.2 release, which also brings sub-400ms slot times and larger maximum transaction sizes. The 300ms slot reduction activated on testnet earlier this month; the rent reduction is now beginning its own independent testnet phase before mainnet activation.

Companion proposal SIMD-0392 adjusts the post-execution balance check to preserve the flexibility to raise rent back toward current levels if monitoring data warrants it; the phased structure keeps each reduction independently reversible.