Solana’s 150-millisecond Alpenglow upgrade enters second public testnet

Solana‘s Alpenglow upgrade, designed to slash transaction finality to roughly 150 milliseconds, is now running on its second public test network, providing a critical testing ground for developers.

The upgrade, which aims to reduce finality from the current 12.8 seconds, is live on both the devnet and testnet. This allows application teams to check their software compatibility before the changes are deployed to the main blockchain, which handles real value.

Alpenglow achieves its speed target by altering how network validators reach consensus and by removing validator votes from blocks. This architectural shift means that reported total transactions on the network will decrease, even if actual user activity levels remain the same.

A date for the mainnet launch of Alpenglow has not been set. The protocol’s ambitious 150-millisecond finality target also remains to be proven and sustained under real-world, live-market conditions.