Solana's SIMD-0389 Protocol Upgrade Could Unleash Billions of SOL by Cutting Storage Fees Up to 100x

The Solana network is poised for a significant shift in its economic model. At the Solana Breakpoint conference in December, Brennan Watt, VP of Engineering at Anza—a leading research and development organization focused on Solana—presented details on SIMD-0389, a proposal designed to fundamentally reshape how developers and users interact with on-chain storage costs.

Understanding the Current Account Rent Model

In the Solana ecosystem, maintaining data permanently on-chain requires payment of account creation rent—essentially a storage fee that ensures data persistence. This mechanism, while crucial for network security and data availability, has created friction for builders and users alike, making it more expensive to deploy applications and manage multiple accounts.

SIMD-0389’s Revolutionary Approach

The SIMD-0389 proposal tackles this challenge head-on by reimagining the rent structure. According to Watt’s presentation, the protocol change could reduce account creation rent by approximately 10x under baseline conditions, with pathways to achieve reductions of up to 100x depending on specific deployment configurations and network conditions.

Beyond mere cost reduction, the proposal maintains a critical balance: it preserves the integrity and continuous availability of on-chain data while simultaneously lowering barriers to entry for new projects and individual users.

Unlocking Billions in Dormant SOL

The potential impact extends far beyond development efficiency. Anza’s analysis of the security slowdown mechanism—a framework discussed during technical sessions at SolanaConf—indicates that this restructured rent model could liberate billions of SOL tokens currently tied up in inactive accounts and low-utility storage allocations.

This liberation of capital has profound implications for Solana’s ecosystem expansion, potentially catalyzing broader adoption by reducing the friction that has historically discouraged experimentation and growth on the network.

Technical Implications and Security Considerations

The proposal doesn’t sacrifice security for affordability. Rather, it represents a sophisticated redesign that maintains network validators’ incentive structures while making the platform more economically accessible. This balance is essential for sustaining both Solana’s security properties and its competitive positioning within the broader blockchain landscape.