Solana’s biggest network change since 2020 is live. Here’s how users benefit
Summary
Solana activated its Alpenglow upgrade, replacing its previous validator voting system with direct vote-sharing and certificates. The change aims to reduce transaction finality to about 150 milliseconds from several seconds, giving apps stronger assurance that payments have settled sooner. The target applies under normal network conditions and is not guaranteed; the time users see can also depend on their service. Wallets, fees and app operations remain unchanged. Validator votes no longer count as on-chain transactions, so dashboards may show lower transaction totals even if user activity is steady.
