Analysts at the financial giant Goldman Sachs upgraded their S&P 500 projections amid new predictions for rate cuts from the U.S. Federal Reserve.

Goldman Sachs Research economists say there’s more than a 50% chance of the Fed cutting rates at the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting in September, three months earlier than their previous prediction.

Goldman economists predict 25-basis-point cuts in September, October, and December, and March and June of 2026.

The upgraded forecast is due to early evidence that indicates the impact of President Donald Trump’s tariffs has been somewhat less dramatic than initially expected. David Mericle, chief US economist in Goldman Sachs Research, also notes that it has become harder to find a job in the US, though he says the labor market remains healthy overall.

The CME FedWatch Tool estimates there’s a 62.7% chance the Fed will cut the rate by 25 basis points at the FOMC meeting in September. The FedWatch Tool generates probabilities using the 30-day Fed Funds futures prices.

Due to the upgraded forecast, Goldman Sachs strategists raised their 12-month forecast for the S&P 500 index from 6,500 to 6,900, Bloomberg reports. They also increased their year-end target from 6,100 to 6,600.

The S&P 500 is trading at 6,225.52 at time of writing. The leading index is up 0.5% in the past five days and 3.66% in the past month.

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Over the past few years, NFTs have evolved from a small niche into a recognized technology across art, collectibles, and various industries. As interest grows, challenges related to cost and scalability have become more evident, especially for those looking to launch large NFT collections. In response, developers on the Solana blockchain introduced compressed NFTs (cNFTs)—an approach that stores and verifies NFTs in a more resource-efficient way.

We look at what cNFTs are, how they differ from traditional NFTs, and why they may appeal to newcomers and experienced users on Solana.

The Rise of NFTs on Solana

Early NFT Landscape

When Solana first emerged as a platform for NFTs, most collections were relatively small and pricey to mint. Developers championed profile picture (PFP) projects, and early adopters embraced their exclusivity. The idea was to keep supply limited, thus driving up perceived value. However, minting large numbers of NFTs at scale could quickly become costly.

Shift Toward Accessibility

Many artists and community builders found that high fees limited their ability to experiment with large collections or give away free NFTs to fans. Solana’s developers responded by introducing compressed NFTs, which use an innovative approach to store data more efficiently.

This shift toward reduced on-chain storage enables creators to mint hundreds of thousands—or even millions—of NFTs at a fraction of the old cost, making the technology accessible to more people.

What Are Compressed NFTs (cNFTs)?

Core Definition

Compressed NFTs, often called cNFTs, use state compression technology to reduce the amount of on-chain data required for ownership and metadata. Instead of each token occupying substantial space on the blockchain, cNFTs maintain a lean record of ownership, with other details stored off-chain.

How cNFTs Differ from Traditional NFTs

• Traditional NFTs: Typically store images and metadata either fully on-chain or in external links (like IPFS). This can become expensive at scale because every entry requires blockchain space.

• cNFTs: Maintain the essential ownership records on-chain but compress and offload the heavier metadata elsewhere. This hybrid design lowers costs while providing a verifiable link to the token.

Key Features

cNFTs slash the costs of minting large NFT collections by storing less data on-chain, allowing creators to launch thousands or even millions of tokens without breaking the bank. This efficiency also helps tackle scalability, making cNFTs an excellent fit for gaming, social media, and metaverse projects that need high-volume assets.

They achieve this balance by keeping essential ownership details on-chain while offloading heavier files elsewhere, preserving authenticity without bogging down the network. Because fewer transactions hit the blockchain, cNFTs lower energy usage, offering a more sustainable path for creators and collectors alike.

How cNFTs Work on the Solana Blockchain

State Compression in Action

Solana’s state compression is the secret sauce behind cNFTs. Instead of writing every bit of data for each token onto the blockchain, the protocol organizes the information using Merkle trees. A compressed record of ownership goes on-chain, while large files (like images or animations) stay off-chain.

In compressed NFTs, the detailed account information isn’t held directly on-chain. Instead, it’s kept in off-chain data stores managed by RPC providers.

By verifying each token’s existence through cryptographic proofs, the system ensures everyone can trust the data without needing to store every detail on the blockchain.

cNFTs have gained traction partly thanks to an expanding toolset. Well-known Solana wallets—Phantom, Solflare, and Backpack—support cNFTs, allowing users to buy, sell, and manage them with minimal friction.

Why cNFTs Matter

Affordability Spurs Innovation

When minting fees are high, creators may hesitate to experiment. Compressed NFTs drop these costs significantly, allowing for artistic or experimental projects without worry of financial loss.

For instance, platforms like DRiP can distribute free or low-cost NFTs to engage communities. As a result, more users—artists, fans, and developers—enter the ecosystem, driving new ideas and larger audiences.

Dynamic and Interactive Experiences

Lower fees don’t just make NFTs cheaper; they also spur interactive use cases. Blockchain game devs can create dynamic items that evolve with gameplay, knowing they can handle massive numbers of tokens. Examples include Dialect, which incorporates cNFTs for collectible in-platform stickers and adds gamified engagement.

Community Building and Attention

NFTs are social as much as they are collectible. By distributing tokens widely and at minimal cost, communities can grow faster. DRiP, for example, uses cNFTs to broaden membership and encourage fan participation. This mix of easy entry and creative engagement can capture attention inside and outside the core NFT community.

Key Marketplaces Supporting cNFTs

Tensor

Tensor is a major NFT marketplace embracing cNFTs, offering both traditional listings and an NFT Automated Market Maker (AMM). This setup functions similarly to Sudoswap on Ethereum, letting users place bids and trade in a liquidity pool.

Magic Eden

When Magic Eden launched in September 2021, it quickly became a key destination for anyone interested in NFTs on Solana. It supports traditional Solana and compressed NFTs (cNFTs), allowing creators to release larger collections without running into high fees. With accessible tools and minimal costs, newcomers can easily list projects, and collectors can explore a steady stream of new drops.

Source Tensorians

cNFT Collections

Tensorians

Among the most prominent cNFT collections is Tensorians, introduced by Tensor. This 10,000-piece collection used airdropped “Tensorian Shards” to let people mint the official tokens. Despite being a compressed NFT release, Tensorians has a market cap of 39,640 SOL—equivalent to about $6.3 million.

Tensorians combined large-scale minting with scarcity and exclusivity, demonstrating that mass minting doesn’t automatically destroy an NFT’s potential for long-term value, as long as a community is actively engaged.

Many creators are drawn to cNFTs to experiment with new formats and themes. Whether big gaming projects or niche artistic endeavors, the market for compressed NFTs continues to grow. Potential collectors might find fresh opportunities in marketplaces like Tensor and Magic Eden, where experimental cNFT projects are regularly launched.

The Other Side of cNFTs

Spam and Hacks

Lower minting costs benefit legitimate creators, but they also attract scammers. Some individuals mint and send cheap, suspicious NFTs to random addresses, hoping recipients click on harmful links. Even if the success rate is low, the near-zero overhead of creating and distributing these spam tokens makes such scams appealing to bad actors.

Staying safe means verifying any unexpected NFT drop or link. Users should be cautious about who they trust or which tokens they interact with, especially when they arrive unannounced.

Over-commoditization of NFTs

While cNFTs excel at opening doors to large collections, the ease of minting can flood the market. This can dilute scarcity, a key factor that originally made NFTs attractive as unique digital assets. If everyone can mint unlimited tokens, then the value proposition for specific collections might suffer.

Future Outlook and Potential

Widening Adoption

As minting costs stay low, it’s likely that more developers, brands, and artists will experiment with cNFTs. With smaller financial barriers, creators can explore fresh ideas with reduced risk, and communities can participate more freely.

Evolving Technologies

State compression is just the start. Ongoing research may refine these strategies, making minting even more efficient or adding features like partial on-chain updates. Other blockchains might also adopt similar approaches as they grapple with the same cost and scalability hurdles.

NTT DATA, a global digital business and IT services leader, has today launched a new global research report uncovering the use of generative AI (GenAI) in the banking sector worldwide. The report, titled “Intelligent banking in the Age of AI”, has found that despite the growing adoption of GenAI technology in the banking industry, banks and financial institutions are split when it comes to outcome-based strategies – only half of banks (50%) see it as a tool for improving productivity and efficiency. Similarly, half (49%) believe it can be used for reducing operational IT spend. 

Transforming Banking Through GenAI 

GenAI is more disruptive than any previous advance in banking technology. It is less a question of if, but when banks embrace this technology, due to its transformative ability to embed intelligence at every layer of the banking ecosystem, from core banking to front-end systems. GenAI already making waves in the banking industry, with 6 in 10 organizations (58%) already fully embracing its transformative potential, an increase from 2023, when only 45% of organizations had fully embraced GenAI, according to NTT DATA’s research. 

“Generative AI represents a pivotal moment for the banking industry,” said Robb Rasmussen, Head of Global Marketing & Communications, NTT DATA. “While the potential benefits are enormous, the challenges of implementing GenAI are complex and varied, requiring careful navigation and a structured approach. Given the anticipated high spending on GenAI, achieving a return on investment is crucial. Many banks will be expecting GenAI to drive long-term savings by automating IT tasks, improving operational efficiency, and creating competitive advantages, but it’s important to note that achieving meaningful ROI requires a clear strategy, tailored implementation, and robust governance at the same time.” 

Financial constraints increasing pressure on ROI 

ROI has become a top priority for GenAI implementations, yet banking organizations are split in their opinions of which strategies are most important to them. Banks have long struggled with boosting productivity, and GenAI is poised to present a solution to this problem, but only half of banking leaders (50%) see it as a solution to current productivity woes. Cost optimization is another area where banks are split, with just under half (49%) are looking to reduce IT budgets accordingly. 

 This disparity is highlighted on a global scale too – for example, almost 6 in 10 US banks (59%) are keen to reduce IT budgets and almost half (47%) want to cut operations budgets, while only 4 in 10 banks in Europe (43%) have IT budgets front of mind and just over a third (36%) are concerned with operations costs. Meanwhile productivity is the most important factor for European banks (46%), yet the US and APAC are placing even more emphasis on productivity themselves in comparison.  

Key performance indicators (KPIs) that financial institutions are using or planning to use to evaluate the success of its Generative AI initiatives: 

Differing strategies across differing regions 

Strategies for realizing these benefits of GenAI differ vastly among organizations too. While around half of organizations are focusing on collaboration between humans and AI (51%) or a hybrid approach with existing systems (47%), over a quarter (28%) of banks are hoping to fully automate tasks and remove the need for manual input entirely. Fully automating tasks is an area which divides opinions worldwide as well, with a quarter of banks in the UK (25%) and Europe (24%) looking to fully automate the process, while almost a third of banks (32%) in the Americas and 35% of Japanese banks are looking to do the same. 

Robb Rasmussen, Head of Global Marketing & Communications, NTT DATA added: “It is clear that the ability to balance innovation with fiscal responsibility will define success for banks. However, many banks are lacking in maturity when it comes to this technology and are unsure where to start. Partnering with systems integrators can be a good starting point, allowing them to access the latest knowledge while ensuring compliance with industry regulations. By working with specialized providers, banks can ensure that GenAI implementations can deliver the desired ROI, while maintaining robust data protection measures and meeting both internal security standards and regulatory requirements.” 

NTT DATA’s research dives into specific areas of the banking industry, including Payments and Wealth Management, as well as Fraud Prevention. To read the full report, please go to “Intelligent banking in the Age of AI”