Solana doubles block production speed to 200ms as network prepares for Alpenglow upgrade

Solana has doubled its targeted block-production frequency after activating 200-millisecond slots on mainnet, completing a months-long effort to accelerate the blockchain.

The Oct. 9 upgrade reduces Solana's original 400-millisecond slot target by half, allowing the network to create five block-production opportunities per second instead of 2.5. It also shortens the time required to complete a network epoch to approximately 24 hours from 48 hours.

Anza, the developer behind Solana's Agave validator client, confirmed the activation, declaring that the SIMD-0525 upgrade had been completed.

“Blocks land twice as often as they did at genesis. An epoch now takes about a day instead of two,” Anza stated.

Jacob Creech, the Solana Foundation's vice president of technology, also celebrated the milestone, saying the network continues to improve with successive software releases.

“Solana continues to improve release after release, proving to be the best place to build,” Creech said, before identifying Alpenglow as the network's next major upgrade.

Early performance data indicated that the change was already producing faster slots, although the network had yet to consistently reach its new target.

CryptoSlate's sampling of Solana's public mainnet RPC showed an average of approximately 222 milliseconds across 1,413 slots following activation, compared with roughly 268 milliseconds under the previous 250ms target.

The latest change completes a four-stage rollout that began in August, when Solana first reduced its slot target to 350 milliseconds. Subsequent reductions to 300ms and 250ms prepared validators for Friday's final adjustment.