A New Proposal Plans to Make Solana (SOL) Extremely Faster

Solana’s blockchain community is excited about the Alpenglow proposal. The consensus aims to reduce block finality from the current average of 12.8 seconds to 100–150 milliseconds (85–128 times faster). Notably, users view the network’s average block finality as a barrier for real-time applications that demand near-instant confirmation.

Research firm Anza, spun out from Solana Labs, claims that further gains would require changing Solana’s core consensus approach. The firm presented Alpenglow as a solution at the Solana Accelerate 2025 conference on May 19.

A New Proposal Emerges

The Alpenglow consensus aims to leverage two subsystems, Votor and Rotor. Votor runs one-round voting when at least 80% of the stake is responsive and two-round voting if only 60% participate. With the “one/two-round” approach, Anza claims block finality time will be significantly faster.

On the other hand, Rotor refines Solana’s existing Turbine protocol by collapsing its multi-layer tree into a single layer of relay nodes. It splits blocks into smaller pieces to flood the network efficiently. Alpenglow aims to streamline voting and data distribution across the network with the combined two subsystems.

According to Anza’s blog post, Alpenglow’s testnet deployment will begin in Q3 2025. If testnet metrics align with expectations, community voting through the Solana Improvement Document (SIMD) process will start in Q4 2025. If approved by the community, a phased mainnet upgrade could commence.

What Solana Users Should Expect

If Alpenglow delivers on its promises, the Solana ecosystem stands to gain across multiple fronts. DeFi platforms could settle transactions with near-zero lag, approaching the speed of traditional exchanges. Institutions evaluating faster blockchain infrastructure will likely view Solana as a viable solution.

However, Alpenglow may require validators to upgrade RAM and CPU capabilities to process larger blocks and handle faster voting rounds without glitches. If the consensus raises hardware demands, it could favor well-funded operators, potentially impacting decentralization.

Solana — Not a Boring Chain

Solana’s ecosystem thrives as DeFi protocols meet users’ demands, resulting in competition among based projects. For example, Pump.fun launched a revenue‐sharing program after its rival debuted Launchlab with some earning mechanism in place.

Another factor that makes the network very active is that users remain enthusiastic about on‐chain participation. Most on-chain participants believe Solana-based startups will reward early and existing users, as some projects have done in the past.

On the other hand, the Solana Foundation has tightened its Delegation Program to foster more decentralization and sturdier network foundations. CoinTab recently reported that for every validator admitted to the Delegation Program, three long-standing validators with less than 1,000 SOL are removed. 

Meanwhile, regulatory uncertainty remains a significant hurdle, as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has delayed multiple spot SOL ETF decisions. Recently, the regulator extended its review of Bitwise and 21Shares ETF applications. It opened public comment periods to address investor protection concerns.

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