Solana starts testing upgrade that could cut finality from 12.8 seconds to 150 milliseconds
Summary
Solana’s Alpenglow upgrade has moved to the public testnet, where developers will test a new consensus protocol, Votor, designed to reduce transaction finality from about 13 seconds to 0.15 seconds. Faster finality could help exchanges, bridges and merchants settle transactions sooner. The migration requires validators to run Agave 4.3; Firedancer and Frankendancer do not yet support the test, leaving the initial migration dependent on Agave. A Sept. 28 mainnet date in Anza’s schedule concerns Agave 4.3 features, not a confirmed Alpenglow launch. The testnet switch was still pending at the time of reporting.
