Solana Tests 150-Millisecond Finality on Devnet: New Hope for Crypto Payments

Solana announced that the Alpenglow upgrade has been activated on devnet and testnet, marking a public testing phase for a feature that promises transaction finality in just 150 milliseconds—far faster than the 12.8 seconds of the current system. The move opens room for application developers to test it before it is deployed on the main network that manages real funds.

Anza, the company developing Solana's core software, confirmed the switch to devnet on September 25, a day after testnet completed a similar transition. The Solana Foundation's upgrade page lists Alpenglow as active on both networks. Devnet itself is used by developers to test applications with tokens that have no real value, while testnet focuses more on software stress tests and validator operations.

The fundamental change lies in how validators—the computers that verify transactions—reach agreement. Whereas validator votes were previously recorded as transactions inside blocks, Alpenglow has them exchange votes directly. As a result, consensus can be reached in just one or two rounds of voting. Consequently, several Solana activity metrics will decline because the total number of transactions, which includes validator votes, will shrink, even though user payment and trading volumes remain the same. The Solana Foundation has asked data providers to adjust their comparisons.

Even so, the 150-millisecond figure is still a target derived from simulations, not a result proven under live market conditions. Processes in digital wallets and deposit verification at exchanges can add waiting time. There is no definite date for when this upgrade will be active on mainnet. Anza's software schedule provisionally allows feature activation starting September 28, but does not specifically name that date as the launch of Alpenglow.

"Applications that only send transactions and read account balances do not require migration," according to the Solana Foundation's guidance, as quoted from the official document.

For services that build transaction histories, a distinct challenge arises: they must keep competing candidate blocks separate until the network chooses one. Mixing their contents can produce incorrect records. This demands technical adjustments for data infrastructure providers in the Solana ecosystem.

In the Indonesian context, this development could affect the landscape of digital payments and crypto investment. With faster finality, stablecoins and blockchain-based financial applications can offer a smoother user experience, similar to conventional banking transactions. This aligns with the trend of crypto asset adoption in Asia Pacific that is increasingly integrated with regular finance. the Financial Services Authority (OJK) and Bank Indonesia are drafting a clearer regulatory framework for digital assets, so faster transaction speeds could become a catalyst for adoption in the retail and institutional sectors.

However, domestic industry players need to note that faster finality also demands readiness of supporting infrastructure, including local exchanges and wallet providers, to integrate this change. Without adjustment, the benefits of speed will not be felt optimally. In addition, there is still uncertainty regarding the mainnet schedule that could affect product planning.

Going forward, the question is how quickly Solana can prove the 150-millisecond target on the main network, and whether the Indonesian ecosystem is ready to take advantage of this technological leap to strengthen its position as a digital financial hub in the region. Meanwhile, developers and investors are advised to keep monitoring updates from Anza and the Solana Foundation.