Solana sets Alpenglow upgrade for Oct. 21 as network targets faster finality

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Solana Alpenglow upgrade

Highlights

Solana will implement the Alpenglow upgrade on Oct. 21 during epoch 1064, switching finality mechanisms 18 minutes after the epoch begins.
Alpenglow aims for transaction finality in roughly 150 milliseconds, requiring validators to update to Agave 4.3.0 and temporarily switch from Firedancer and Frankendancer.
Validator voting now moves off-chain, lowering on-chain transaction counts and shifting validator costs from a 1 SOL per epoch fee to a flat 0.8 SOL admission fee.

Upgrade timeline and migration requirements

As reported by CoinDesk, citing the Solana Foundation, the network is scheduling the Alpenglow upgrade for Oct. 21, with the migration set for epoch 1064, expected to begin around 15:00 UTC. Solana continues using its current TowerBFT voting system for the first 5,000 slots of that epoch before switching to Alpenglow about 18 minutes later.

Alpenglow replaces the validator voting system that Solana has used since its 2020 launch. The target is transaction finality in roughly 150 milliseconds, although actual performance still depends on network conditions across the network.

Validators must prepare their software for the change. Operators need a version built on Agave 4.3.0, while validators running Firedancer and Frankendancer must temporarily switch software because those clients do not support the initial migration.

Effect on transaction metrics and validator costs

Under the current system, validators submit votes as transactions recorded on-chain as they help confirm blocks. Alpenglow moves those votes off-chain and lets validators exchange approvals directly, then combine enough of them into a certificate that finalizes a block after one or two voting rounds.

That design means Solana's headline transaction count could drop sharply once the upgrade takes effect, even if users keep trading and making payments at the same pace. The change reflects the removal of validator vote transactions from blocks rather than weaker network activity.

The new structure also changes validator costs. Existing voting charges of about 1 SOL per epoch disappear and are replaced by a flat admission fee of 0.8 SOL.

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