According to the Solana Foundation, Solana plans to deploy Alpenglow on its crypto network on October 21, 2026. Epoch 1064 will start on that day around 3 p.m. UTC. This consensus aims for a finality of 150 ms, compared to 12.8 s today. The issue thus goes beyond speed since the crypto network changes its mechanism.
In brief
- Solana plans to activate Alpenglow at epoch 1064, October 21, 2026.
- The intended purpose goes from 12.8 seconds to around 150 milliseconds.
- Votor replaces TowerBFT as the consensus mechanism.
- Crypto validators must use an Agave 4.3.0-based client and hold at least 0.8 SOL in their voting account.
What Alpenglow is changing for the Solana crypto network
Announced more than a year ago, Alpenglow is the new Solana consensus layer. Today, this finality takes about 12.8 seconds on Solana. With Alpenglow, the Solana Foundation is aiming for around 150 milliseconds. Which represents a 99% reduction.
According to our calculations from data from the Solana Foundation, the delay goes from 12,800 ms to 150 ms. This equates to a drop of approximately 98.8%. This value obviously remains a target. It will depend on the stake as well as the conditions of the crypto network.
| Indicator | Current or target situation |
| Purpose with TowerBFT | 12.8 seconds |
| Purpose aimed with Alpenglow | 150ms |
| Theoretical reduction of delay | 98.83% |
| Duration of a slot after distinct reduction | 200ms |
| Tolerance announced | 20% malicious stake + 20% offline |
Concretely, the change concerns Votor.
- Under TowerBFT, crypto validators send their votes in the form of crypto transactions. Result: a block becomes final after 32 accumulated vote slots.
- With Votor, Solana validators exchange their votes directly. They then group them into certificates. A block can therefore become final after one or two rounds of voting.
What this number does not measure: the 150 ms concerns the purpose, not the speed of block production. Fees, programs and format of crypto transactions remain unchanged.
What this changes for crypto users
For a crypto user, a transaction on Solana should become definitive almost immediately. The foundation indicates that crypto wallets and applications will continue to function without user action.
This acceleration turns out to be particularly beneficial to payments, DEXs as well as applications requiring rapid confirmation. However, it does not guarantee immediate adoption by merchants, and even less identical performance for each crypto transaction on the Solana network.
Moreover, the update could present a risk for crypto validators. The fact is that migration is called “breaking change”. In other words, validators must run a client based on Agave 4.3.0. Firedancer and Frankendancer are not supported during the transition.
That’s not all! Each validator voting Solana must keep at least 0.8 SOL on his voting account. This sum finances the Validator Admission Ticket, collected at each epoch and then burned. Without payment, the validator can no longer vote or produce blocks in the next epoch.
On October 21, it will therefore be necessary to check the effective switch at slot 459 653 000, planned after the first 5,000 slots of the epoch. If the target of 150 ms is confirmed, Solana will strengthen its positioning on crypto uses requiring rapid confirmation.
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