Solana's new Alpenglow consensus protocol has launched on mainnet beta. Validator voting is moved off-chain, and the protocol is said to operate safely even with 20% malicious nodes and 20% offline nodes. Finality is expected to be reduced to approximately 150 milliseconds.
Solana, the cryptocurrency, has launched a new consensus protocol called Alpenglow on mainnet beta, according to an announcement from its official X account. The technology is provided by Anza, a development company, and the implementation introduces a new consensus mechanism.
A key feature of the upgrade is the migration of validator voting off-chain. This means the network will operate using a processing method that differs from the previous one.
With the introduction of Alpenglow, the protocol is designed to operate safely even if approximately 20% of nodes are malicious and 20% are offline. The article emphasizes improvements in stability and fault tolerance.
The upgrade is said to offer benefits including a reduction in finality to approximately 150 milliseconds, which is expected to improve transaction confirmation speeds.