Solana News Today: Solana's Near-Instant Finality Could Redefine Blockchain Speed Standards

The Solana community has overwhelmingly approved the Alpenglow upgrade, marking a pivotal moment in the blockchain's development. According to the results of the governance process, 98.27% of voting SOL stakers supported the proposal, with only 1.05% voting against it and 0.36% abstaining. Approximately 52% of the network’s stakers participated in the vote, fulfilling the quorum requirement of 33% and ensuring the upgrade’s near-certainty for implementation [1]. The Alpenglow upgrade is expected to significantly enhance the network’s performance by introducing a new consensus protocol that drastically improves transaction finality and network efficiency [2].

At the core of the Alpenglow upgrade are two new components, Votor and Rotor, which will replace Solana’s existing systems, Proof-of-History and TowerBFT [1]. Votor is designed to slash transaction finality times from over 12 seconds to around 150 milliseconds, enabling near-instant confirmation for users. This improvement is expected to bring Solana’s transaction speed to Web2-level responsiveness, unlocking new use cases that require both speed and cryptographic certainty [2]. Rotor, which will be rolled out later, aims to minimize data transfers between validators, a crucial enhancement for high-demand applications such as decentralized finance (DeFi) and blockchain-based gaming [3].

The anticipated implementation of Alpenglow is expected to position Solana as one of the fastest layer-1 blockchains, potentially surpassing Sui, which has a transaction finality of around 400 milliseconds, and even outperforming standard Google searches, which take approximately 200 milliseconds to return results [3]. The upgrade’s speed improvements are seen as a key factor in Solana’s ability to compete with Bitcoin and Ethereum, the latter of which includes transactions in roughly 12 or 13 seconds but requires up to 12 minutes for finality. By reducing finality time, Solana can expand its use cases beyond payments, trading, and gaming, enabling real-time blockchain applications that have traditionally been the domain of centralized systems [2].

In response to the approval, the Solana Foundation highlighted the compounding effect of the Alpenglow upgrade and other initiatives within the Solana ecosystem. These improvements are expected to create financial infrastructure that operates at internet speed, according to the foundation. Analysts and developers suggest that the upgrade could further strengthen Solana’s position in the blockchain space, especially as it prepares to launch a new independent validator client, Firedancer, later this year. This client will provide much-needed client diversification for the network, which currently relies heavily on a single production-ready client, Agave [3]. However, the Alpenglow white paper acknowledges that the upgrade will not fully eliminate Solana’s history of network outages, a challenge the project continues to address [3].

The approval of the Alpenglow upgrade has already had a measurable impact on the SOL token’s price, with the asset rising approximately 6.5% in the wake of the announcement. This price movement reflects the market’s confidence in the network’s future scalability and performance capabilities. As Solana prepares for the implementation of the upgrade, stakeholders and developers are closely monitoring the network’s ability to deliver on its promise of near-instant transaction finality while maintaining security and decentralization [1].

Source: [1] Solana Set for Major Overhaul After 98% Votes to Approve ... (https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2025/09/02/solana-set-for-major-overhaul-after-98-votes-to-approve-historic-alpenglow-upgrade) [2] Solana's Alpenglow Upgrade Clears Governance Vote for ... (https://cointelegraph.com/news/solana-alpenglow-upgrade-clears-governance-vote-implementation) [3] 99% favor Solana Alpenglow upgrade for 150ms finality, so ... (https://cointelegraph.com/news/99-percent-solana-voters-favor-alpenglow-upgrade)