Solana launched Alpenglow on its public testnet on Sept. 24 and on devnet on Sept. 25, substituting its legacy TowerBFT framework with Votor. The upgrade is designed to slash Solana’s finality duration from 12.8 seconds down to an estimated 100 to 150 milliseconds. Anza has not yet announced a mainnet release schedule, and both Firedancer and Frankendancer must still incorporate Votor support.
Solana has advanced a major technical milestone by running its Alpenglow consensus upgrade across two public test networks, aiming for irreversible settlement in roughly one-tenth of a second. This performance marks a dramatic improvement over the roughly 12.8 seconds the network presently requires for economic finality. Co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko marked the devnet countdown by stating, “You are not ready for this.” Nevertheless, the mainnet infrastructure securing billions in assets has yet to transition.
TowerBFT Replaced Following a 17-Minute Countdown
Anza, the developer behind Solana’s Agave validator client, deployed Alpenglow on the public testnet on Sept. 24. Following a 5,000-slot countdown that took about 17 minutes, the migration concluded at slot 444,625,255. The final TowerBFT block held 82% of the stake. An Alpenglow genesis block immediately followed, retiring the older consensus mechanism on that cluster and shifting finalization responsibilities to Votor. The devnet followed on Sept. 25, finishing its transition at slot 504,148,999.
These deployments build on prior testing, as a dedicated community cluster has practiced the migration since May—a process that included one failed early attempt requiring a network restart. The underlying protocol, SIMD-0326, gained governance approval in September 2025 with 98.27% of participating votes.
From 12.8 Seconds to the Blink of an Eye
Under Solana’s current architecture, validators must submit votes as onchain transactions and…
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is Solana’s Alpenglow? Alpenglow is a new consensus overhaul designed to replace Solana’s older TowerBFT system with Votor.
- When was Alpenglow deployed on testnets? Anza activated Alpenglow on the public testnet on Sept. 24, followed by the devnet on Sept. 25.
- How much will finality times improve? Alpenglow aims to reduce Solana’s finality time from 12.8 seconds down to approximately 100 to 150 milliseconds.
- Is Alpenglow live on the Solana mainnet? No, Anza has not yet set a mainnet release date, and other clients like Firedancer and Frankendancer still need to add Votor support.