Blockchain & Cryptocurrency Glossary

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Storage Rent

1 min read
Pronunciation
[staw-rij rent]
Analogy
Like paying monthly rent to store furniture in a warehouse; if you stop paying, the warehouse reclaims your items.
Definition
A proposed fee model where users pay periodic charges to maintain data in a blockchain’s state, incentivizing efficient state usage and pruning of unused entries.
Key Points Intro
Storage rent aims to curb state bloat by attaching ongoing costs to data storage.
Key Points

Periodic fees: charged based on bytes stored per time unit

Refunds: a portion returned when data is deleted

Eviction: non-payment leads to automatic removal of stale data

Economic balance: offsets block reward inflation and storage growth

Example
Ethereum Improvement Proposals like EIP-2938 discuss storage rent to complement gas fees and manage long-term state size.
Technical Deep Dive
Implement rent via account storage metadata tracking last payment timestamp and byte usage. Smart contracts deduct rent fees from balances or escrow accounts. Eviction contracts call `selfdestruct` or reset storage slots upon missed payments. Economic parameters require simulation to avoid excessive data loss.
Security Warning
Users or dApps failing to budget for rent risk unexpected data eviction and loss of functionality.
Caveat
Adds complexity to gas accounting and may discourage on-chain data storage for long-lived applications.
Related Terms
Gas
Pruned Node
SelfDestruct

Storage Rent - Related Articles

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