Solana validators approved an update that aims to settle transactions in just 150 milliseconds.
Solana validators last week approved a consensus upgrade for the network that would cut transaction finality dramatically. But some experts are concerned that faster finality brings tradeoffs, including in security.
Over 98% of nodes backed the new Alpenglow upgrade, according to a Sept. 2 post from Solana Status on X. The updated consensus protocol for Solana, developed by Anza, a spinoff from Solana Labs, is expected to bring near-instant finality to transactions, reducing the current 12-second wait to just 150 milliseconds.
For Solana, Alpenglow marks one of its boldest technical moves since the network’s outages in 2022 and 2023.
If it works as intended, the upgrade will replace older systems like proof-of-history voting and gossip messaging, with a leaner design where most of the consensus runs off-chain. Rather than each validator…
