Anza, a Solana blockchain infrastructure firm spun out of Solana Labs, has proposed a new proof-of-stake consensus called Alpenglow that it claims would be \u201cthe biggest change to Solana\u2019s core protocol\u201d and compete with current internet infrastructure.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe that the release of Alpenglow will be a turning point for Solana. Alpenglow is not only a new consensus protocol, but the biggest change to Solana\u2019s core protocol since, well, ever,\u201d Anza\u2019s Quentin Kniep, Kobi Sliwinski and Roger Wattenhofer said<\/a> on May 19.<\/p>\n Alpenglow<\/a> consists of Votor, which processes voting transactions and block finalization logic, and Rotor, a data dissemination protocol that would replace Solana\u2019s proof-of-history<\/a> timestamping system and aim to reduce the time it takes for all nodes to agree on the network state.<\/p>\n Source: <\/em>Anza<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Anza researchers claimed that \u201cAlpenglow will shatter both these latency bounds\u201d and the project expects it to reach actual finality in about 150 milliseconds, rivaling internet infrastructure<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cA median latency of 150 [milliseconds] does not just mean that Solana is fast \u2014 it means Solana can compete with Web2 infrastructure in terms of responsiveness, potentially making blockchain technology viable for entirely new categories of applications that demand real-time performance.\u201d<\/p>\n Votor \u2014 which would replace TowerBFT \u2014 would aim to finalize blocks in a single round if 80% of the stake is participating, and in two rounds if only 60% of the stake is responsive.<\/p>\n Related: <\/strong><\/em>DeFi lender Aave reaches $40B in value locked onchain<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n These two voting modes are integrated and run concurrently, with finalization taking place as soon as the faster of the two paths terminates.<\/p>\n Anza\u2019s researchers claimed this model would result in \u201cunprecedented finalization latency\u201d while enabling it to operate more effectively under \u201charsh network conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n The project\u2019s white paper noted that switching to Alpenglow wouldn\u2019t completely shield Solana<\/a> from the network outages<\/a> that it has experienced in the past.<\/p>\n Solana currently only has one production-ready client, Agave, meaning any security vulnerability<\/a> in Agave can disrupt the entire Solana network.<\/p>\n However, a new independent validator client called Firedancer is set to launch on Solana\u2019s mainnet sometime this year, which will provide client diversification for the network.<\/p>\nAlpenglow won\u2019t fix Solana\u2019s network outages<\/h2>\n