Solana Tests New Upgrade Aiming to Reduce Payment Finality to 150 Milliseconds

New Protocol Aims for Near-Instant Payment Finality

Solana has introduced its latest upgrade, Alpenglow, now in the testing phase on its public test network. This upgrade aims to significantly decrease the payment finality time from approximately 13 seconds to just 0.15 seconds, which is crucial for exchanges, bridges, and merchants relying on fast and irreversible transactions.

The upgrade replaces the existing TowerBFT consensus mechanism with a new protocol called Votor. This change allows validators to finalize blocks more rapidly by sharing their votes directly, thus reducing the number of voting rounds needed for transaction finality.

Currently, applications on the Solana network will remain unaffected, and users will not need to change their existing practices for sending funds or using wallets. The Alpenglow upgrade has been in testing for over four months on a smaller network, and the transition to the established testnet will help evaluate its compatibility with the broader network.

Validators participating in the test must utilize Agave 4.3, the primary software for running Solana, as advised by Anza, a key developer. While plans for a mainnet update are tentatively set for September 28, the launch of Alpenglow is still pending confirmation, as ongoing tests are being monitored closely.

It is important to note that two alternative validator programs, Firedancer and Frankendancer, are currently incompatible with the Alpenglow test. Their future integration aims to reduce reliance on a single software solution, enhancing the network's resilience.