Solana Activates Transaction V1 on September 9, Eyes Further Slot Time Reduction

Solana is gearing up for several significant upgrades to its network in the coming weeks and months. One of the most notable changes will be the activation of Transaction V1 on September 9, which will increase the maximum serialized transaction size from 1,232 bytes to 4,096 bytes.

This expansion could enable transactions containing complex multisignature instructions, zero-knowledge proofs, and other data-heavy operations. However, developers must opt into the new format, and existing legacy and version-zero transactions will remain valid.

In addition to Transaction V1, Solana is also planning a five-stage rent reduction, which will lower the rent calculation from 6,960 lamports per byte to 696 lamports per byte. This could reduce entry costs for applications that manage many user accounts and make it easier for developers to create token accounts and program accounts.

Solana has already reduced its target slot time to 350 milliseconds, but plans to further shorten slot times to 300, 250, and eventually 200 milliseconds. However, these changes will require separate feature activations and coordinated testing before wider adoption.