The Solana Foundation has deployed Alpenglow, the network's first major consensus upgrade, to its mainnet. The update aims to reduce transaction finality by 99%, targeting a speed of approximately 150 milliseconds compared to the previous 12.8 seconds. This transition replaces the existing TowerBFT consensus model.
The first phase of the upgrade, known as Votor, implements direct validator voting and a certificate-based system to achieve these latency improvements. A subsequent phase, Rotor, will introduce a new block data-distribution protocol to replace the current Turbine system. These changes are intended to enable near-immediate transaction settlement.
Following the launch, the network continues to work on the Agave 4.5 upgrade, scheduled for December 2026. This update proposes increasing the number of accounts supported by a versioned transaction from 64 to 96, which is expected to improve swap routes and execution prices. The network currently maintains a throughput of 4,721 transactions per second.
In August, the foundation began reducing slot times with the goal of halving them to 200 milliseconds to enhance network responsiveness. Researchers from Anza noted that achieving 150-millisecond latency could allow blockchain applications to compete directly with Web2 infrastructure. Prior to the Alpenglow launch, the SOL token price increased by nearly 3%.
