SOLANA'S BIGGEST NETWORK CHANGE SINCE 2020 IS LIVE

Summary from the TLDR Crypto newsletter

Solana activated Alpenglow on Wednesday. It targets finality of about 150 milliseconds under normal conditions, down from several seconds. Validators now send votes directly to each other and combine approvals into certificates, so a block can finalize after one or two voting rounds. Before, votes were recorded as transactions across successive blocks. The handover took about 900 ms, and 446 of 654 validators voted on the starting block. Apps often showed payments as confirmed before full settlement, so the change mainly gives stronger assurance. Exchanges could credit deposits sooner, and shops could confirm stablecoin payments faster. The 150 ms figure is a target, not a guarantee, and Anza said some computers receive finality information later than voting validators. Wallets, fees, and how apps run are unchanged. Validator votes no longer appear as transactions, so dashboards will show a sharp drop in transaction totals even though user activity hasn't changed.