In a turn of events that could make even the most seasoned of blockchain enthusiasts raise an eyebrow, Anza, a sprightly offshoot of Solana Labs, has decided to throw its hat into the ring with a new proof-of-stake consensus dubbed Alpenglow. They boldly declare it to be âthe biggest change to Solanaâs core protocolâ since the invention of the wheelâor at least since the last time someone had a bright idea over tea.
âWe believe that the release of Alpenglow will be a turning point for Solana. Alpenglow is not only a new consensus protocol, but the biggest change to Solanaâs core protocol since, well, ever,â chirped Anzaâs trio of tech wizardsâQuentin Kniep, Kobi Sliwinski, and Roger Wattenhoferâon May 19. One can only imagine the enthusiasm in the room, perhaps accompanied by a few celebratory biscuits.
Now, Alpenglow is not just a pretty name; it consists of Votor, which handles the voting transactions and block finalization logic, and Rotor, a data dissemination protocol that aims to replace Solanaâs rather antiquated proof-of-history timestamping system. The goal? To reduce the time it takes for all nodes to agree on the network stateâbecause who has time for dilly-dallying?
Anzaâs researchers have made the audacious claim that âAlpenglow will shatter both these latency bounds.â They expect it to achieve actual finality in about 150 milliseconds, which is faster than a cat on a hot tin roof! đ±âđ€
âA median latency of 150 [milliseconds] does not just mean that Solana is fast â it means Solana can compete with Web2 infrastructure in terms of responsiveness, potentially making blockchain technology viable for entirely new categories of applications that demand real-time performance.â
Votor, which is set to replace the rather quaint TowerBFT, aims to finalize blocks in a single round if 80% of the stake is participating. If only 60% of the stake is responsive, it will take two rounds. Talk about a high-stakes game of poker!
These two voting modes are integrated and run concurrently, with finalization occurring as soon as the faster of the two paths decides to call it a day. Anzaâs researchers are positively giddy about this model, claiming it will result in âunprecedented finalization latencyâ while allowing it to operate more effectively under âharsh network conditions.â Sounds like a recipe for success, or at least a good laugh!
Alpenglow wonât fix Solanaâs network outages
However, before we all start popping the champagne, the projectâs white paper has a sobering note: switching to Alpenglow wonât completely shield Solana from the network outages that have plagued it in the past. Itâs like putting a fancy new hat on a leaky boatâstill going to sink if youâre not careful!
Currently, Solana has only one production-ready client, Agave, which means any security hiccup in Agave could send the entire Solana network into a tailspin. But fear not! A new independent validator client called Firedancer is set to launch on Solanaâs mainnet sometime this year, promising to add a dash of diversification to the network. Letâs hope it dances its way to success!
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2025-05-20 04:01