Solana’s Alpenglow upgrade targets 150ms transaction finality
Solana activated Alpenglow on Oct. 21, targeting finality in 150 milliseconds; users keep their wallets and fees as payments and exchange deposits can settle sooner.
By Web3 Hub Newsroom2 min read
Solana activated its Alpenglow consensus upgrade on Oct. 21, replacing TowerBFT and targeting transaction finality in about 150 milliseconds, according to the Solana Foundation’s upgrade page. The network had taken about 12.8 seconds to reach finality under the old system.
How could Alpenglow change payments and trades?
Faster finality could let merchants treat payments as settled sooner and exchanges credit deposits earlier. Anza told The Block that the new protocol condenses the previous two-step confirmation process into one.
The 150-millisecond figure is a target, not a guaranteed settlement time for every transaction. Solana’s documentation says transactions settle almost immediately for users, while wallets and apps continue to work as before.
Do users need a new wallet or face different fees?
No. Solana’s upgrade documentation says users need take no action: signing and sending transactions, app execution and fee mechanics remain unchanged.
Alpenglow changes how validators agree on blocks. They now send votes directly to each other and combine them into certificates, replacing vote transactions in blocks. Solana says dashboards that counted those votes may show lower transaction totals after activation.
What comes after the Alpenglow activation?
The first phase, Votor, has been live since epoch 1064 began on Oct. 21. Solana says Rotor, a planned change to how block data spreads across the network, will come in a later release, with no date scheduled.
References
- Solana Foundation’s upgrade page — solana.com
- The Block — theblock.co