Solana Activates Alpenglow on Mainnet, Swapping Out TowerBFT for a Faster Consensus Engine
By Unchained
AI summary of the source article
Solana transitioned its mainnet to the Alpenglow consensus protocol on Wednesday, replacing TowerBFT. Developer Anza and Solana reported that the upgrade reduces finality to 150 milliseconds, with votes no longer submitted as transactions.
Why it matters
Under Alpenglow, votes no longer submit as transactions and are aggregated into certificates, "freeing blockspace for users."
Key facts
- Solana activated the Alpenglow consensus protocol on its mainnet on Wednesday, replacing TowerBFT.
- Finality is reported to drop from 12.8 seconds to 150 milliseconds.
- Validators now send votes as BLS-signed messages instead of transactions and pay a flat fee of 0.8 SOL per epoch.
Source excerpt · Unchained
Onchain data puts the handover at about 13:54 UTC on Wednesday, and the Solana and Anza accounts say finality now takes roughly 150 milliseconds. The post Solana Activates Alpenglow on Mainnet, Swapping Out TowerBFT for a Faster Consensus Engine appeared first on Unchained .