- Solana will hold a community vote on SIMD-0326 to adopt Alpenglow and target ~150ms block finality.
- The measure passes with a two-thirds supermajority of Yes over Yes plus No and a 33% quorum.
Solana validators are preparing to vote on SIMD-0326, a proposal to introduce the Alpenglow consensus protocol and materially shorten settlement times on the network.
Solana sets two-thirds threshold and 33 percent quorum for SIMD-0326
The governance timetable lists a discussion window through epoch 838, stake-weight publication in epoch 839 and a voting window spanning epochs 840 to 842, with balloting to close at the end of epoch 842.
Under the rules, the proposal passes if Yes votes are at least two-thirds of the total of Yes and No. Abstentions count toward a quorum threshold set at 33 percent of stake. Voting tokens corresponding to validator stake will be claimable and used to direct choices to Yes, No or Abstain accounts.
Solana’s new consensus proposal Alpenglow (SIMD-0326) has entered the community governance stage. The protocol aims to reduce block finality from 12.8s to ~150ms. Voting will take place between Epochs 840–420 (current epoch: 834, ~2 days each). The proposal passes if yes votes…
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) August 17, 2025
The process is designed to give operators time to verify stake weights and to ensure transparent tallying. Stake snapshots and a reference script will be published to support independent verification of the count. All further announcements are to be posted in the Solana developer governance forum.
Alpenglow shifts to off-chain voting and introduces 1.6 SOL admission fee
Alpenglow would replace components of the current TowerBFT-based design with a scheme that targets actual block finality around 150 milliseconds, compared with roughly 12.8 seconds today.
The architecture combines rapid voting and certificate aggregation to finalize slots more quickly while cutting network overhead. Proponents say the change reduces bandwidth devoted to on-chain vote transactions and simplifies validator participation.
Under the proposal, validator votes move off-chain and are aggregated by scheduled leaders several slots ahead, with certificates written on-chain. To maintain an economic threshold after removing per-vote transaction fees, the design introduces a Validator Admission Ticket set initially at 1.6 SOL per epoch.
The fee is burned and non-refundable and operators that do not maintain sufficient balance are removed from the active set. Leader roles would be compensated for submitting valid aggregates and for including fast-finalization or finalization certificates.
Forum discussion indicates the 1.6 SOL figure mirrors the approximate cost of current vote transactions, aiming to avoid abrupt shifts in validator economics during any transition.
Contributors have asked how admission pricing could evolve and how performance metrics will track validator behavior when votes are no longer posted as individual on-chain transactions.
The maintainers suggest that on-chain certificates and aggregates will still allow measurement of participation and that economic parameters can be revisited after stability is demonstrated.
If approved, network teams would proceed to implementation and deployment planning consistent with the governance outcome. The vote is framed as a step toward lowering settlement latency for applications that benefit from rapid finality while retaining stake-weighted security guarantees established on the network.
At the time of writing, Solana was trading at $182.94 on CoinGecko, down exactly 4.44% over the last 24 hours, while on Binance it stood at $183.18, representing a 5.29 % decrease.
