Solana activates Alpenglow upgrade for faster transaction finality

Alpenglow goes live

Solana switched on its Alpenglow upgrade Wednesday. The change introduces a new voting system designed to make payments and trades final (settled, with little chance of reversal) in about 150 milliseconds under normal network conditions, down from several seconds.

The upgrade is described as the biggest network change for Solana since 2020.

Faster settlement for payments

• New voting method: Instead of recording validator (computer that checks transactions and helps agree on network records) votes as transactions on the blockchain (a shared record of activity), validators can now send votes directly to each other and combine them into certificates.
• Quicker finality: A block can become final after one or two voting rounds, targeting about 150 milliseconds. The handover from the old system took about 900 milliseconds.
• Real-world use: An exchange could credit a deposit sooner, or a shop accepting a stablecoin (a digital token designed to hold a steady value) payment could confirm it faster. How quickly this reaches a user's screen depends on the app handling it.

Little change for everyday users

Users can keep their existing wallets (apps or tools to store and send crypto). Transaction fees and how applications run remain unchanged. The 150-millisecond target is not guaranteed for every payment.

Dashboards may look different

Because validator votes are no longer recorded as blockchain transactions, network dashboards will count fewer transactions overall. Comparisons with past activity need to separate user transactions from the votes that previously appeared on the blockchain.

Sources

• CoinDesk

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