defi ·
Solana’s faster finality is live. What changes for users?
Solana has been running Alpenglow on mainnet since October 21, replacing a voting system that could take several seconds to finalize a block with one designed to finish in a fraction of a second.
The Solana Foundation records the switch in epoch 1064, after 446 of 654 validators certified a genesis block. A user sending SOL might see a payment appear almost at once and wonder what the upgrade improved. A wallet can show that a transaction was processed before the network has made it final.
Alpenglow compresses the wait for the stronger assurance, but the app still has to submit the payment, hear back from a node and decide when to change its own display. An exchange may impose another wait before crediting an account. The Foundation's upgrade record says transaction formats, programs and fees did not change.
