Solana activates Alpenglow, targeting 150ms transaction finality

Solana activated its Alpenglow consensus upgrade on Oct. 21, targeting transaction finality in about 150 milliseconds, down from 12.8 seconds, according to The Block’s report citing Anza. Solana’s upgrade tracker lists Alpenglow as live on mainnet.

The change replaces TowerBFT, Solana’s consensus protocol since the network launched in March 2020. It could let merchants settle payments and exchanges credit deposits sooner, though 150 milliseconds is a target, not a guarantee for every transaction.

How does Alpenglow change transaction finality?

Alpenglow changes how validators vote on blocks and confirm them. Instead of recording votes as on-chain transactions, validators exchange votes directly and combine approvals into certificates; blocks can then become final after one or two voting rounds, CoinDesk reported.

Finality is the point at which an application can treat a transaction as settled. Under the previous system, apps could show a transaction as confirmed before it had reached finality, leaving an additional wait before settlement.

What could users notice?

Faster finality could help an exchange release a customer’s deposit for trading or let a shop confirm a stablecoin payment sooner. The speed a user sees also depends on the service processing the transaction, CoinDesk reported.

Users can keep their existing wallets, and fees and applications remain unchanged, according to CoinDesk. The protocol change affects how validators reach agreement, rather than how users send funds.

Why might Solana transaction counts fall?

Validator votes no longer appear as blockchain transactions under Alpenglow, so dashboards that counted those votes may report lower totals. CoinDesk reported that such a decline would not necessarily mean users are making fewer payments or trades.

Sources

• The Block’s report citing Anza — theblock.co
• upgrade tracker — solana.com