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Solana activates Alpenglow, targeting 150ms transaction finality

Anza’s Alpenglow upgrade replaced Solana’s TowerBFT on Oct. 21, targeting 150ms finality and changing how validators confirm transactions.

The Today Crypto Editors

Solana activates Alpenglow, targeting 150ms transaction finality

Solana activated Anza’s Alpenglow consensus upgrade on Oct. 21, replacing TowerBFT and targeting transaction finality in about 150 milliseconds. Finality is when a transaction can no longer be reversed; before the upgrade, Solana’s usual finality took several seconds. Anza said in its announcement that the switch took effect at slot 459,653,000, at about 14:00 UTC.

Faster finality could let exchanges credit deposits and merchants release goods sooner after a payment.

How does Alpenglow aim to reach 150 milliseconds?

Alpenglow changes how validators agree on blocks: they send votes directly to one another and combine approvals into certificates. That lets a block become final after one or two voting rounds, according to CoinDesk’s report.

The change replaces TowerBFT, Solana’s consensus protocol since its 2020 launch. Anza’s 150ms figure is a target under normal network conditions, not a guaranteed wait for every user; the time a wallet or service takes to receive finality information can also vary.

What changes for people using Solana?

Most users can keep their existing wallets, and the upgrade does not change transaction fees or how applications run. The practical difference is the time an app may need to wait before treating a payment or trade as irreversible.

That can matter when a service needs settlement assurance before releasing funds or goods. Faster finality could shorten that wait, though the time shown to a user depends partly on how quickly their service receives the network’s confirmation.

What will validators and network dashboards notice?

Validator votes no longer appear as on-chain transactions under Alpenglow. Dashboards that count those votes may therefore show lower transaction totals, even if the number of user payments and trades has not fallen.

The upgrade changes consensus, the process validators use to agree on the network’s records. Users do not need to migrate, while services that report transaction activity should account for the removal of vote transactions when comparing figures across the change.

Sources