Solana Kicks Off Voting for Alpenglow Upgrade as Validators Eye Faster Finality

Solana initiated the voting phase for its highly anticipated Alpenglow upgrade, a sweeping consensus overhaul that could mark the biggest change in the network’s history.

The proposal, formally known as SIMD-0326, is now live for validator votes, with over 10% already signaling support. To pass, the initiative needs at least 33% quorum and a two-thirds majority of participating votes.

Solana’s Alpenglow Upgrade: Everything Users Need To Know

Community observers have called Alpenglow the most ambitious update since Solana’s launch.

Analytics platform Solana Floor described it as the most significant consensus upgrade proposal in the network’s history.

Alpenglow would replace Solana’s legacy Proof-of-History (PoH) and TowerBFT system. The upgrade promises a modern consensus architecture designed to deliver near-instant block finalization.

While TowerBFT currently requires about 12.8 seconds to finalize a block, Alpenglow promises to reduce this latency to just 100–150 milliseconds. This speed is comparable to Web2 applications.

“Basically, Web2 speed with blockchain security,” one user quipped.

At the core of Alpenglow is Votor, a lightweight, direct-voting protocol. In Votor, validators finalize blocks through either a single or dual voting round, depending on network conditions.

By exchanging votes directly and using cryptographic aggregation, validators can achieve consensus with far less network overhead. This cuts down the gossip-heavy traffic that has long been a bottleneck.

The motivation for the shift stems from both performance and security challenges with Solana’s existing model.

TowerBFT lacks formal safety guarantees and has long finality delays that can leave the network vulnerable to reorgs and degraded performance.

Alpenglow addresses these weaknesses with:

• “20+20” fault tolerance: The network remains live even if 20% of validators are malicious and another 20% go offline.
• Economic fairness: Validators must pay a Validator Admission Ticket (VAT) of 1.6 SOL per epoch to participate, ensuring they have a stake in the game and discouraging free-riding.
• Off-chain voting: Eliminating per-slot vote transactions reduces costs and bandwidth usage.

The reward structure also shifts. Leaders aggregating votes now earn the same rewards as included validators.

There is also a bonus for producing finalization certificates. This aims to align incentives while lowering overhead.

Timeline and Voting Process

The voting process is structured around Solana epochs:

• Epoch 833–838: Discussion period
• Epoch 839: Stake weights published
• Epochs 840–842: Voting tokens distributed and cast

Validators will use a Jito-built distributor tool to claim voting tokens, which they can send to addresses for Yes, No, or Abstain.

The proposal will succeed if Yes votes make up at least two-thirds of Yes+No totals, provided quorum is reached.

Early on-chain data shows over 10% validator support, though the upgrade will need broader buy-in to cross the 33% threshold.

Alpenglow Upgrade Voting. Source: Solana Protocol

If passed, Alpenglow could redefine Solana’s competitive positioning in the Layer-1 (L1) blockchain race.

With finality times plunging to under 200ms, developers and traders alike may see Solana as a blockchain that finally matches Web2 speed without sacrificing decentralization.