The upgrade reduces network transaction finality from 12.8 seconds to approximately 150 milliseconds by replacing the voting system with certificate-based consensus. This shift, resulting from 18 months of development, increases network resilience by allowing operations to continue with up to 40% of stake offline or misbehaving, compared to the 33% limit under the current TowerBFT system.
Tuesday, October 20, 2026
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Solana Warns 20.3% of Stake Unprepared for Oct 21 Alpenglow Switch
Crypto13 hours ago
A total of 151 validators lack the necessary software and funding to continue producing blocks after the next consensus migration. Anza and the Solana Foundation warned that network operators without the Agave 4.3.2 client, a BLS public key, or at least 0.8 SOL in their vote accounts will be unable to participate after the Alpenglow update on Oct 21, leaving 20.3% of the stake at risk. The activation time may move earlier than the planned 14:50 UTC window because slots in epoch 1064 are running faster than projected.
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