Solana Activates Alpenglow Upgrade, Targeting 150-Millisecond Finality

Solana activated its Alpenglow consensus upgrade Wednesday, targeting transaction finality of about 150 milliseconds and a shorter wait for exchanges and payment apps that must confirm transfers. The change took effect during epoch 1064 at slot 459,653,000. Finality is the point after which a transaction cannot be reversed. The 150-millisecond figure is the upgrade’s target. Alpenglow changes how validators agree on transactions. They send votes off-chain and combine them into certificates instead of recording each vote as a transaction. The design allows a transaction to become final after one or two voting rounds. The upgrade also changes validator costs.