Solana Price Sees Brief Boost Ahead of Alpenglow Upgrade Chaos

Solana's price has reclaimed the $120 level, trading at around $122 on Friday afternoon. This development is significant, but the question on everyone's mind is what it means for staked SOL in the context of the upcoming Alpenglow upgrade.

The validator client Frankendancer, which combines the networking layer of Firedancer with the consensus code of Agave, is set to lose support from Jump Crypto with the activation of Alpenglow on the Solana mainnet. According to a report by Cryptobriefing, this decision is due to the maintenance and security burden of the hybrid, which will be diverted to the full Firedancer instead.

Frankendancer currently holds a significant share of total Solana stake, estimated at 14 to 26 percent, with the full Firedancer accounting for roughly 11 to 14 percent. Validators that fail to switch to the full Firedancer or fall back to Agave will drop out of consensus when the switch happens, resulting in no block production and no rewards.