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- The Solana Alpenglow upgrade cuts transaction finality from 12.8 seconds to 100–150 milliseconds, improving bandwidth efficiency, reducing computational overhead, and enhancing security.
- SOL price remains strong at $209, with analysts projecting targets of $215 by late September and $250 by year-end.
The Solana Foundation has finally approved the much-awaited Alpenglow upgrade, which seems to enhance the network performance and boost transaction speed. This is a significant upgrade considering the rapid growth of decentralized finance (DeFi) on the Solana blockchain network. SOL is the only asset in the top-ten crypto list with positive gains on the weekly chart, and is trading 2.53% up at $209, as of press time.
Solana Alpenglow Upgrade Gets 98% Approval Vote
On Tuesday, September 2, the Solana governance vote concluded, exceeding the 33% quorum requirement with strong validator participation. Data from the Solana Foundation shows 98.27% of votes supported the Alpenglow upgrade proposal, 1.05% opposed, and 0.69% abstained.
The approved proposal, SIMD-0326, was introduced by research firm Anza and implements Alpenglow. This new protocol replaces TowerBFT and Proof-of-History with Votor and Rotor for improved efficiency and resilience. Moreover, this upgrade will cut transaction finality from 12.8 seconds to roughly 100–150 milliseconds, marking a significant leap toward Web2-level speeds and enabling faster, more secure exchange deposits.
“At these speeds, Solana could realize Web2-level responsiveness with L1 finality, unlocking new use cases that require both speed and cryptographic certainty. The compounding effect of these initiatives and the many others in the Solana ecosystem is financial infrastructure that operates at internet speed.” noted the Solana Foundation.
The Solana Alpenglow upgrade introduces Votor, a direct-voting mechanism that finalizes blocks in one or two rounds, thereby reducing finality to near-instant speeds. Rotor replaces Proof-of-History, managing validator timestamping and significantly cutting data transfer times.
The upgrade allows validators to exchange votes using cryptographic aggregates by removing bandwidth-heavy gossip traffic. Moreover, this approach lowers computational overhead, boosts bandwidth efficiency, and enhances security guarantees.
SOL Price Shows Strength, Will Rally Continue In September?
As mentioned in our previous report, SOL price has outperformed the rest of altcoins with positive weekly gains as the bulls continue to hold firmly above the $200 support levels. The immediate resistance for SOL as of now is $210, from where the altcoin has faced multiple rejections in the past. Crossing this will open the gates for the next target of $240.
Analysts believe the upgrade could strengthen Solana’s attractiveness to both developers and institutional players. Shawn Young of MEXC Research predicts SOL could climb to $215 by late September and $250 by year-end, driven by the protocol enhancements and institutional treasury holdings exceeding $1.7 billion.
On the other hand, asset managers have been pushing ahead for the approval of spot Solana ETFs, as reported by CNF. Last week, Franklin Templeton, VanEck, and Canary Capital submitted updated S-1 filings to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, advancing their plans to introduce Solana-based exchange-traded funds.
