Solana Prepares Validators For Alpenglow Upgrade

Solana has started preparing validators for Alpenglow, an upgrade that aims to cut transaction finality from about 12 seconds to around 150 milliseconds and could make payments and trades final almost instantly. According to BeInCrypto, the change will consolidate voting data into a small digital certificate, with rollout expected in stages between August and October 2026 if testing stays on track. SOL traded near $77 with a market value of about $45 billion, while the upgrade still requires validator BLS key registration and an active Validator Admission Ticket before mainnet activation.