Solana Bolsters Transaction Capacity with Format Upgrade
Solana's transaction format is set to undergo an upgrade on September 9, which will allow for larger transactions and increased data capacity. The maximum size of a single transaction will be raised from 1,232 bytes to 4,096 bytes, providing more room for complex operations like zero-knowledge proofs and multisignature instructions.
The change is made possible by the QUIC network protocol, which does not impose a fixed ceiling on data streams. The new format, called v1, will be activated automatically, but developers need to migrate their applications deliberately. Existing formats, legacy and v0, remain unchanged and unaffected by this upgrade.
This update is part of Solana's rolling program of feature activations, which allows for decoupling changes from hard forks or chain splits. The network activation date has a few hours of leeway in both directions due to the epoch boundary, meaning that 9 September is not an exact clock time but rather a window of opportunity.