Glossary

1. Compressed NFT (cNFT) — a special type of non-fungible token (NFT) that utilizes data compression techniques to reduce the size of digital assets while preserving their unique characteristics.
2. Resource savings — the reduction in resources, such as storage space and computational power, achieved by storing only essential information about each item in a collection instead of storing each item in its entirety.
3. Gas costs — the fees paid by users for executing transactions on a blockchain network. By reducing the amount of data stored on the blockchain, compression NFTs help lower gas costs for creating and managing NFT collections.
4. Scalability — the ability of a system to handle increasing amounts of data or users without sacrificing performance. Compression NFTs improve scalability by minimizing the computational load on the blockchain network.
5. Efficient data storage — the optimization of data storage on the blockchain by storing only necessary information about each item in a collection. This reduces the amount of data stored on the blockchain and improves overall system efficiency.
6. Merkle trees — data structures used to efficiently store and process data on a blockchain. In the context of compression NFTs, merkle trees organize individual items or tokens within a collection, with each leaf node representing a unique item. This hierarchical hashing enables quick verification of data integrity and authentication.
7. Data integrity — the assurance that data remains unchanged and reliable throughout its lifecycle. Merkle trees facilitate the quick verification of data integrity for each element of a collection, ensuring the authenticity of digital assets.
8. Data security — the protection of digital assets from unauthorized access, manipulation, or loss. Compression NFTs leverage merkle trees to enhance data security by enabling rapid and reliable verification of the integrity and authenticity of each item in a collection.
9. Blockchain resources — the resources, including storage space, computational power, and network bandwidth, required to operate a blockchain network efficiently. Compressed NFTs optimize the use of blockchain resources by reducing the amount of data stored and processed on the network.
10. Digital asset management — the process of organizing, storing, and transferring digital assets, such as digital art or collectibles, on a blockchain network. Compressed NFTs offer a streamlined approach to digital asset management, balancing efficiency, scalability, and security.

Introduction

cNFT, or compressed NFT, is a specialized digital asset format that optimizes data storage. By employing data compression algorithms, cNFT reduces file sizes without compromising uniqueness, thereby saving space on servers and reducing data storage and transmission costs. Merkle trees play a crucial role in enhancing the efficiency of cNFT collections by minimizing storage requirements.

• What a tree roughly looks like:

Non-tech knowledge for cNFTs

With cNFT technology, artists can shrink their digital artwork's size without losing its uniqueness. This not only saves on transaction fees (gas) but also makes it easier to transfer the artwork over the internet.