Compression

Four sponges of the same type in a 2×2 grid make one sponge of the next tier. There are five compressed tiers, from 1x to 5x. A 5x sponge is worth 1,024 base sponges.

base4 × ⇄ = 44 × ⇄ = 164 × ⇄ = 644 × ⇄ = 2564 × ⇄ = 1,024

base4 × ⇄ = 44 × ⇄ = 164 × ⇄ = 644 × ⇄ = 2564 × ⇄ = 1,024

base4 × ⇄ = 44 × ⇄ = 164 × ⇄ = 644 × ⇄ = 2564 × ⇄ = 1,024

base4 × ⇄ = 44 × ⇄ = 164 × ⇄ = 644 × ⇄ = 2564 × ⇄ = 1,024

Compressing

Shaped ➜ Compressed Lava Sponge 1x

Shaped ➜ Compressed Lava Sponge 2x

The same pattern works for every element and tier. The water line starts from the vanilla sponge:

Shaped ➜ Compressed Sponge 1x

Decompressing

Every step can be undone. Put one compressed sponge in the crafting grid to get four of the tier below.

Shapeless ➜ 4Compressed Lava Sponge 1x

Shapeless ➜ 4Lava Sponge

Shapeless ➜ 4Sponge

TIP

Only dry sponges can be compressed or split. Reset soaked sponges first (water, lava, snow, fire). Soaked sponges of the same tier can be traded, see Sponge traders.

Is it worth it?

Each tier reaches further, and the search limit grows eightfold per tier:

Tier	Reach	Search limit
Base	6 (7 for snow)	65 (125 for snow)
1x	10	512
2x	16	4,096
3x	22	32,768
4x	28	262,144
5x	34	2,097,152

From 3x up, the reach is the only limit: a 3x sponge can already clear every block within 22 steps in open water. See the range explorer.