- A new consensus protocol, Alpenglow, is being developed to replace Solana’s hybrid TowerBFT and Proof-of-History model.
- Alpenglow focuses on Solana’s consensus speed with the introduction of Votor and Rotor.
- SOL showed signs of recovery after the announcement, reducing its loss on Monday to 1%.
Solana (SOL) showed signs of recovery in the American trading session on Monday following the introduction of a new consensus protocol, Alpenglow, which would replace the network’s current Proof-of-History and TowerBFT mechanisms.
SOL Recovers Slightly as the Solana Community Celebrates Upcoming Consensus Change
The Solana ecosystem revealed a new consensus model, Alpenglow, which is being built to replace the network’s Proof-of-History mechanism.
The research firm developing the new model announced the initiative on Monday at the Solana Accelerate event. Alpenglow focuses on Solana’s consensus speed, attempting to reduce block finalization from 12.8 seconds to a median of 150 ms.
“A median latency of 150 ms not only means that Solana is fast, but that Solana can compete with Web2 infrastructure in terms of responsiveness,” the firm stated in a press release.
To replace TowerBFT and Proof-of-History, Alpenglow will introduce two new components: Votor and Rotor, which will serve as the “new voting and finalization logic.”
Votor will act as the voting protocol and is expected to finalize blocks once or twice, depending on participation. One round of voting will be sufficient when 80% of the stake is available, while two rounds of voting will be required if there is 60% participation.
On the other hand, Rotor focuses on data transmission using Solana’s Turbine structure. Rotor will introduce single-layer nodes instead of Turbine’s multi-layer tree structure, which aims to reduce constant “hops” during data diffusion.
“Like Turbine, Rotor utilizes the bandwidth of participating nodes proportionally to their stake, alleviating the leader bottleneck for high throughput,” the firm added.
Solana’s founder, Anatoly Yakovenko, praised the Alpenglow model in a post on X on Monday, stating that it offers a “simple and elegant design that is really easy to intuit.”
The Alpenglow prototype is live for testing, according to the Solana Foundation. The new consensus could be integrated into Solana’s testnet in a few months. A mainnet upgrade will require a Solana Improvement Document (SIMD) proposal, which is expected later in the year.
Following the announcement, SOL found support near the $163 level, which coincides with the 100-period Simple Moving Average (SMA) and the lower limit of an ascending channel on the 4-hour chart. Therefore, the altcoin has reduced some of its losses observed earlier in the day, with its price down only 1% at the time of publication.
To the upside, Solana’s price faces resistance at $177 and the upper limit of the ascending channel. To the downside, SOL could test the $147 support if it fails to hold the $163 level.
