Solana Developers Unveil High-Performance Alpenglow Protocol

The new consensus protocol for Solana, named Alpenglow, with finalization in 150 ms, aims to compete with Web2 in response speed. The testnet launch is expected in a few months.

BREAKING NEWS: @anza_xyz research team announces new state of the art Solana Consensus on stage at Solana Accelerate.

The new Alpenglow protocol ? brings transaction finality down to 100-150ms — a 100x improvement over today’s latency.

Here’s what you can expect ? https://t.co/HjqKfYe9Hm pic.twitter.com/oP41nkyr2b

— Solana (@solana) May 19, 2025

Currently, the specified metric exceeds expected parameters by 100 times (12.8 s). However, the lower threshold could even be 100 ms. The reduction to sub-second waiting times will be possible thanks to the concept of “optimistic confirmation.”

Such low finalization values will make Solana competitive for entirely new categories of applications requiring real-time performance, the statement said.

Alpenglow is positioned as the largest change to the network’s core protocol in its history.

The initiative involves replacing components such as TowerBFT and Proof-of-History with Votor, which will handle the logic of voting and block finalization. Meanwhile, Rotor will enhance the Turbine transaction transmission protocol approach.

The Votor voting component completes block processing in record time: in one round with 80% node participation and in two rounds with 60% response. Both modes operate in parallel, and finalization occurs upon the completion of the fastest one.

Rotor distributes the load among nodes proportionally to their share, eliminating the leader bottleneck and ensuring high throughput.

“There are no words to express what a developer feels when dealing with no more than two blocks […] at once, rather than an entire epoch full of unconfirmed blocks,” commented Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko.

I got nearly everything wrong about consensus, except the important parts:
* it can’t be in the way of block producers utilizing 100% of the bandwidth 100% of the time.
* users need some deterministic finality in one round (2-delta)

Alpenglow nails both of these requirements… https://t.co/wrAEydF7yU

— toly ?? (@aeyakovenko) May 19, 2025

The Alpenglow prototype is already operational. The testnet will launch in a few months. 

Implementation in the main network will occur as part of the SIMD later this year.

Back in Sygnum saw no compelling signs that Solana would surpass Ethereum as the preferred blockchain for institutions.

Earlier, analysts recorded large purchases of call options on SOL with expiration on June 27 and a strike price of $200.