Solana will gain speed with the Alpenglow Update.

VanEck has published a recent research report stating that the Solana network is preparing for a significant update. This update, named Alpenglow, is designed to make the network operate faster, smoother, and more easily.

The update is expected to help Solana manage more activity at lower costs. The Solana team indicates that Alpenglow will also bring new design changes to make the system more reliable over time. VanEck expresses that Alpenglow is the largest update in Solana’s history.

With Alpenglow, six main changes will be implemented. These changes promise to improve performance, reduce costs, and increase reliability. One of the most notable features of Alpenglow is that it will change the process by which the network’s validators determine which transactions are valid. This process, known as consensus, will be made more efficient.

Among the gains achieved with Alpenglow will be faster finality, reducing the approval time of transactions that currently take 12 seconds to approximately 150 milliseconds, thereby making trading, payments, and application interactions instantaneous.

This update will also change the existing system that requires validators to perform on-chain transactions for each new block by moving the voting process off-chain. This will allow for more efficient use of the network’s bandwidth and keep transaction fees lower.

Alpenglow simplifies transaction costs for validators. Instead of paying a transaction fee for each vote, validators will present a single Validator Acceptance Ticket per cycle. This makes it easier for smaller operators to run validators, thereby enhancing the network's security.

Additionally, the gossip process, which ensures continuous message sharing among Solana's nodes, will have its bandwidth reduced, allowing validators to coordinate with less time and bandwidth. This change will increase the stability of the system, ensuring smooth operation even if some validators go offline.

Finally, developers plan to increase block capacity by 25% by the end of this year. This will allow Solana to accommodate more transactions per block, thereby reducing wait times. The implementation of a second independent validator software called Firedancer is also targeted for late 2025. Having two different clients will ensure uninterrupted operation even in case the network encounters an issue.

Alpenglow represents a significant step in re-architecting Solana's infrastructure to support the next generation of decentralized finance, gaming, and tokenized asset applications. These changes aim to make Solana's rapidly evolving infrastructure more resilient in the future.