In this blog post, the author discusses the process of building a collaborative pixel art editor using CRDTs (Conflict-free Replicated Data Types). One drawback of using state-based CRDTs is the need to transmit the full state between peers, which can result in large data sizes. However, the author presents a solution to reduce the size of the CRDT’s full state by almost 98% using various techniques such as storing colors as hex codes instead of RGB tuples and using tables for UUIDs and colors. The author also explores the use of run-length encoding and binary encoding to further decrease the data size. The resulting format is significantly smaller than the uncompressed data size.
https://jakelazaroff.com/words/making-crdts-98-percent-more-efficient/