Solana core developers at Anza have opened the on-chain governance process for SIMD 326, known as “Alpenglow,” a consensus redesign that seeks to slash block finality to 150 milliseconds from about 12.8 seconds—a performance leap of up to 100-fold the current speed. The proposal, described by contributors as the network’s most significant upgrade to date, builds on research conducted in collaboration with academic partners and eliminates vote transaction fees to reduce validator overhead. Under Solana’s governance rules, token holders will have roughly 16 days from 15 August to review and vote on the measure. If adopted, Alpenglow would position Solana among the fastest mainstream blockchains, enhancing its appeal for high-frequency trading, tokenized assets and other latency-sensitive applications. The initiative comes as the network’s fundamentals strengthen despite softer trading volumes. A Messari report shows Solana’s decentralised-finance total value locked rose 30.4% quarter-over-quarter to $8.6 billion in the second quarter, while the application revenue capture ratio more than doubled to 211.6%. Developers and analysts say the performance gains promised by Alpenglow could further fuel institutional adoption and sustain the ecosystem’s momentum.