Payment flows on Solana include five core concepts:
- wallets for sender and recipient
- stablecoins as transferred asset type (USDC, USDG, …)
- token accounts to hold balances
- fees for transactions and account creation
- transactions to execute the transfer
| Light | SPL / Token 2022 | |
|---|---|---|
| Transfer | ~$0.001 | ~$0.001 |
| Create Token Account | ~$0.001 (0.00001 SOL) | ~$0.30 (0.0029 SOL) |
| Transfer + Create Token Account | ~$0.001 (0.00001 SOL) | ~$0.30 (0.0029 SOL) |
How the cost reduction works
How the cost reduction works
The token standard pays rent-exemption cost for you. To prevent griefing, “rent” is paid over time to keep an account in memory. This is dealt with under the hood in a way that doesn’t disrupt the UX of what your users are used to with SPL-token.Rent-exemption: paid by a rent sponsor PDA.Top-ups: paid by the fee payer.The 
feePayer on the transaction bumps a small virtual rent balance (766 lamports by default)
on each write to keep the account active (hot balance).
Set your application as the fee payer so users never interact with SOL.Hot-Cold Lifecycle of Accounts.Accounts get auto-compressed (cold balance) when the virtual rent balance goes below a threshold (eg 24h without write bump).
The cold account’s state is cryptographically preserved on the Solana ledger.
Users only interact with hot accounts and load the cold balance in-flight when using the account again.You can abstract fees entirely so users never interact with SOL.
- See fee abstraction for transaction fees.
- See sponsor rent top-ups for keeping accounts active.
API Comparison
Transactions with Light Token API’s mirror SPL / Token 2022, so you can build transactions with a similar developer experience. For example, here is the creation of an associated token account:Token Extensions
Token extensions introduce optional features you can add to a token mint or token account through extra instructions.Supported Extensions by Light Token (with mainnet launch in Q1 2026)
Supported Extensions by Light Token (with mainnet launch in Q1 2026)
| Extension | Description |
|---|---|
| MetadataPointer | Points a mint to the account that stores its metadata. |
| TokenMetadata | Stores token name, symbol, and URI directly on the mint. |
| InterestBearingConfig | Displays a UI-adjusted balance that accrues interest over time. |
| GroupPointer | Points a mint to the account that stores group configuration. |
| GroupMemberPointer | Points a mint to the account that stores group member configuration. |
| TokenGroup | Stores group configuration directly on the mint (e.g., NFT collections). |
| TokenGroupMember | Stores group member configuration directly on the mint. |
| MintCloseAuthority | Allows a designated authority to close a mint account. |
| TransferFeeConfig | Withholds a percentage of each transfer as a fee. |
| DefaultAccountState | Sets the initial state (e.g., frozen) for newly created token accounts. |
| PermanentDelegate | Grants an authority unrestricted transfer and burn rights over all accounts for the mint. |
| TransferHook | Invokes a custom program on every transfer via CPI. |
| Pausable | Allows an authority to pause all minting, burning, and transfers. |
| ConfidentialTransferMint | Configures auditor keys for confidential (encrypted) transfers. |
| ConfidentialTransferFeeConfig | Encrypts withheld transfer fees under an auditor’s public key. |
| ConfidentialMintBurn | Allows minting and burning of tokens with encrypted amounts. |
Learn more on extensions here: Extensions.