Solana News Today: Alpenglow Hits Testnet as SOL Presses Against $120

Solana news today comes from two directions at once. SOL trades around $118, up about 1.3% on the day, while developers test an upgrade that could make transactions final in less time than a blink.

Underneath both stories, a presale is drawing attention from traders who feel they missed this week’s move. More on that below. Developers have deployed Alpenglow to Solana’s public testnet.

The upgrade aims to cut finality, the point at which a transaction can no longer be reversed, from about 13 seconds to roughly 0.15 seconds. The core change is a new consensus protocol called Votor, which replaces the current TowerBFT system.

Instead of stacking votes across 32 slots, validators vote directly with one another and settle blocks in one or two rounds. Anza, the team behind Solana’s Agave client, confirmed that validators need version 4.3 to take part.