Solana Speed Upgrade Nears Completion
Solana's speed upgrade is nearing completion, with the activation of 250ms slot times set for September 18 on the mainnet. The upgrade has been in progress, with each step reducing slot times by 50ms from 400ms to 200ms. According to Anza, a software development firm focused on Solana, the 250ms slot time is now pending activation on mainnet-beta and will go live at epoch 1037 boundary around 05:01 UTC on September 18.
Each reduction in slot times has its own feature gate and activates independently. The upgrades are spaced out to allow core developers to monitor cluster performance between activations. So far, the 350ms and 300ms reductions have been activated on mainnet, with 250ms pending activation and 200ms already active on devnet and testnet.
The upgrade aims to make Solana more competitive with other blockchain protocols by reducing slot times. With faster confirmation times for transactions, users will benefit from the change, while market makers will be able to offer tighter spreads. Validators will also have shorter epochs, meaning they will be rewarded faster for adopting the performance improvements on mainnet.