Key Points:
- Solana developers are proposing a significant overhaul of the consensus process through the Alpenglow proposal, which is now in the validator voting phase.
- This new design seeks to replace the existing Proof-of-History and TowerBFT with two new components, Votor and Rotor, which aim to enhance transaction finalization speed and network efficiency.
- The proposal also introduces a resilience model to ensure the network’s operation even if 20% of validators are adversarial and another 20% become offline.
Solana’s Upgrade Process
Solana’s initiative to overhaul its consensus mechanism is underscored by a tracker indicating that over 10% of validators have demonstrated support for the upgrade by Thursday morning in Europe, with more than 88% of eligible validators yet to cast their votes.
If endorsed, the upgrade would replace the Proof-of-History and TowerBFT systems with a more robust design integrating Votor, which is expected to decrease transaction finalization time from more than 12 seconds to about 150 milliseconds, effectively enhancing the user experience.
Rotor, slated for implementation in a follow-up phase, aims to boost the network’s efficiency by minimizing data transfer needs among validators, optimizing it for high-demand applications such as DeFi and gaming.
Moreover, the Alpenglow proposal offers a unique “20+20” resilience framework designed to maintain network performance under adverse conditions.
