Solana's Agave 4.2 Activation Misses Mainnet Feature Gates

The Solana network's Agave 4.2 activation target has been met, but several key mainnet feature gates remain pending. The Aug. 17 deadline for starting Agave 4.2 mainnet feature activations arrived without a confirmed delivery update. Anza’s validator client for the Solana network recommended Agave 4.2 for general mainnet adoption on Aug. 11.

The first slot-time gates, specifically those for 350-millisecond and 300-millisecond slots, were still pending on mainnet despite their activation epochs on testnet and devnet. The 90% rent cut, larger transactions, and 200-millisecond slots also lacked confirmed starts. Anza’s feature tracker classified these changes as staged.

The Agave 4.2 rollout includes code to test Alpenglow, but the consensus overhaul is not part of the current activation. According to the Solana Foundation, Alpenglow is targeted for inclusion in Agave 4.3 in October 2026.