Solana activated the first phase of its Alpenglow upgrade on mainnet on Oct. 21, replacing TowerBFT with a consensus design that targets finality in about 150 milliseconds. This is a target, not a reported measurement of mainnet finality or end-to-end settlement time. The upgrade leaves transaction execution and fees unchanged; its second phase, Rotor, remains unscheduled.
Faster finality could help workflows that wait for a transaction to become final, but parties still have to fund assets before settlement. It does not provide the netting behind NSCC’s reported average 98% reduction in equities payment obligations; that figure also excludes margin, regulatory capital and peak intraday funding. The article’s estimates of faster fund reuse assume sequential settlements and instant reuse, and shrink as other processing time grows.
