# Solana Alpenglow Upgrade: What Changes for Payments and RPC - By Crypto Chief Team - October 20, 2026 - [Industry News & Insights](/blog/?category=Industry%20News%20%26%20Insights) ![Solana Alpenglow Upgrade: What Changes for Payments and RPC](/img/blog/post121.png) Solana's Alpenglow upgrade goes live on mainnet on October 21, 2026\. It replaces TowerBFT consensus, and blocks will become final in about 150 milliseconds instead of roughly 7 seconds today. Transactions, programs and fees stay the same. If you accept [SOL and SPL token payments](https://crypto-chief.com/processing/) through Crypto Chief, your integration does not need changes. If you call our [Solana RPC](https://crypto-chief.com/rpc/solana/) directly, some responses will look different after the switch. ## What is Solana Alpenglow? Alpenglow is Solana's new consensus protocol, developed by Anza to replace TowerBFT. This upgrade ships its first part, Votor. Validators send votes directly to each other instead of putting them in blocks, and a block is final once validators holding enough stake sign a certificate for it. The second part, Rotor, changes how blocks spread across the network and is planned for a later upgrade. ## When Alpenglow goes live on Solana mainnet The Alpenglow feature gate activates at the start of epoch 1064\. TowerBFT keeps running for another 5,000 slots, about 18 minutes, and Alpenglow takes over at slot 459,653,000\. Anza's announcement gives about 14:50 UTC. Slot times vary, and at the current pace of about 0.215 seconds per slot the switch could come as early as 13:45 UTC. If you are watching it live, go by the slot number. Testnet switched on September 24 and devnet on September 25. ## What happens during the switch to Alpenglow For a short time the network stops including regular transactions. Blocks carry only validator votes until validators holding at least 82% of stake sign the genesis certificate. On devnet the pause lasted about three seconds. A transaction sent during the pause may still land after the handover while its blockhash is valid. If it doesn't, it has to be signed again with a new blockhash. ## What changes for Solana payments Addresses, API requests, webhooks and network fees stay the same. A few things to know: - Solana payments will reach final status a few seconds sooner. - Payments and payouts sent during the switch may be delayed. - Some exchanges and custodial wallets pause Solana withdrawals while they upgrade. A customer paying from one of them may have to wait until withdrawals resume. - If you use Sign and Execute on Solana, call Execute right after signing. The network accepts a signed Solana transaction for less than 30 seconds: its recent blockhash lasts 150 blocks, and Solana blocks have been about 200 ms since October 9. ## What changes for Solana RPC users Our Solana RPC forwards requests to Solana nodes as they are, so these changes reach your app directly. After the switch: - **Commitment levels.** `confirmed` and `finalized` will mean the same thing. Keep your current settings until the switch: on TowerBFT, `finalized` still trails the tip by about 32 slots. Solana plans to deprecate `confirmed` in a later release. - **Confirmations count.** In `getSignatureStatuses`, `confirmations` will no longer go up to 31\. It shows 0 until the transaction is finalized, then `null`. Use `confirmationStatus` instead. - **Vote transactions and TPS.** Blocks will no longer include vote transactions. Votes are more than half of mainnet transactions today, so transaction counts and TPS will drop sharply while real activity stays the same. Check dashboards and alerts built on these numbers. - **Block time.** The block leader will set `blockTime` itself: no earlier than the parent block and no later than the parent plus twice the slot time since it. This replaces the stake-weighted median of validator votes. - **Detecting the switch.** `getAgGenesisCert` returns `null` before the switch and a certificate object after it. Right after the handover nodes can briefly disagree, so check a `null` result again. - The response format of `getBlock` and `getTransaction` stays the same. Method reference: [Solana RPC docs](https://docs-rpc.crypto-chief.com/chains/solana). More on nodes and endpoints: [What is Solana RPC](https://crypto-chief.com/blog/what-is-solana-rpc-nodes-urls-infrastructure-guide/). Official details: [Solana's Alpenglow page](https://solana.com/upgrades/alpenglow). ## Solana Alpenglow FAQ ### Do I need to do anything for the Alpenglow upgrade? Your Crypto Chief integration doesn't need changes. If you use Sign and Execute on Solana, call Execute right after signing. If you call Solana RPC yourself, check your commitment settings and any logic built on the confirmations count. ### How fast is Solana finality with Alpenglow? About 150 ms. That's the expected value, not a guarantee. On TowerBFT a block is final after about 32 slots: 12.8 seconds with the old 400 ms slots, about 7 seconds with today's 200 ms slots. ### Will my Solana address change after Alpenglow? No. Alpenglow changes consensus only. SOL and SPL token addresses and balances stay the same. ### Does Alpenglow change Solana transaction fees? No, fees stay the same. ### Will Solana go down during the upgrade? Solana doesn't plan any downtime. Expect transactions to pause for a few seconds while the network switches consensus. Tags: [Solana](/blog/?tag=Solana) [Alpenglow](/blog/?tag=Alpenglow) [Solana Upgrade](/blog/?tag=Solana%20Upgrade) [Solana Finality](/blog/?tag=Solana%20Finality) [Solana RPC](/blog/?tag=Solana%20RPC) [Crypto Payments](/blog/?tag=Crypto%20Payments)