What are p-tokens and How Will They Make Solana 19x More Efficient?

While pundits tout Firedancer, Alpenglow, and MCP as Solana’s next paradigm-shifting updates, p-tokens are quietly expected to make transactions up to 19x more efficient.

Designed by Anza, p-tokens (or the Pinocchio Library) reduce compute unit usage in Solana transactions. However, not everyone’s convinced; some commentators argue that focus and developer resources should be directed elsewhere to improve the network.

What are p-tokens, and when might they become a reality on the Solana mainnet?

P-tokens Could Make Solana Transactions 19x More Efficient

Pinocchio (or p-tokens) is an optimized and performant library used to write Solana programs. Created by Anza, the research and development firm that spun out from Solana Labs, p-tokens are intended as an alternative to the existing Solana Program Library, commonly referred to as SPL.

The Pinocchio library makes use of zero-copy types to ensure that data doesn’t need to be copied to a separate memory address, reducing compute limits and eliminating excess network bloat. Github comments seem to indicate that engineers from Jump Crypto, the team behind the Firedancer client, are also optimistic about p-token optimization.

Researchers and developers across the Solana ecosystem are adamant that p-tokens could save ~95% of compute resources for the most used program on Solana, effectively making common transactions 19x more efficient. Theoretically, reduced CU could mean that more transactions can be squashed into blocks, accelerating throughput and boosting validator rewards.

Despite concerns that such a massive systemic change might require a large-scale token migration event, Solana Foundation Head of Staking Ben Hawkins has indicated that there will be “No change on inputs and outputs. Just a better implementation for the same thing”. 

According to Dune Analytics, 184,128 $SOL tokens, currently valued at $33.7M, are currently “bricked” in token mint accounts due to the existing SPL token. P-tokens won’t free up these locked $SOL, but the new program could dramatically reduce the amount of $SOL that gets locked up in token mint accounts.

While social consensus seems firmly in support of the new program, some pockets of Solana’s developer community have argued that there are more important things to be working on. Scott Hague, founder of Flux RPCs, Fluxbeam, and RugCheck, argues that the implementation of p-tokens would have little “real world impact”.

SolanaFloor has engaged Hague for further comment on where he believes developer resources and focus should be allocated, but has yet to receive a response.

P-Token Roadmap

Solana p-tokens are still in development and are currently undergoing security audits. In an exclusive comment to SolanaFloor, ExoTech co-founder Taylor Johnson stipulated that the Pinocchio repository is yet to include support token extensions, but expects this will be implemented in the near future.

“T22 core instruction support has recently been merged into the Pinocchio repository, but no crate released yet. This also doesn’t include extension support at the moment, but that will be added soon” - Taylor Johnson, ExoTech co-founder

Once audits are completed, network-wide p-token implementation will be put to a governance proposal under SIMD-0266. If accepted, it is expected that p-tokens could go live in the months following approval.

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