$SOL Solana’s biggest consensus upgrade, Alpenglow, is now live on both public devnet and testnet.
Developed by Anza, it aims to cut transaction finality from 12.8 seconds to about 150 milliseconds.
The upgrade replaces TowerBFT with a new voting protocol called Votor.
Validator votes will move off-chain, freeing up significant block space.
Developers can now test real applications before the change reaches mainnet.
Mainnet activation is still targeted for around October, with no exact date yet.
If successful, Alpenglow will deliver near-instant settlement for payments and DeFi.
SOL has already shown a positive price reaction to the improved scalability outlook.
Regular users need to take no action — wallets and apps will work as usual.
This upgrade could further strengthen Solana as one of the fastest blockchains.