Solana is set to implement a significant upgrade named Alpenglow on its mainnet on October 21 at approximately 14:50 UTC. This upgrade aims to dramatically reduce transaction finality time from about 12.8 seconds to just 150 milliseconds. Alpenglow will replace the existing TowerBFT consensus mechanism and alter how validator votes are processed, moving away from recording them as standard transactions on the blockchain. This change could lead to a decrease in the visible transaction count without impacting user activity. Moreover, the faster finalization is expected to enhance operations for exchanges, payment services, and cross-chain bridges.