# Solana's Alpenglow Switch Replaces Vote Fees With 0.8 SOL Charge By Simon Yoon Canonical URL: https://www.tokenpost.com/news/technology/36632 Published: 2026-10-21T11:57:21.000Z Updated: 2026-10-21T11:57:21.000Z Section: Technology > The first charge will cover participation in epoch 1065. The consensus handoff is expected about 18 minutes after the upgrade epoch begins. Solana's planned Alpenglow switch will replace fees on individual validator votes with a 0.8 Solana (SOL) participation charge per epoch, changing network costs as those votes move out of transaction blocks. The charge will be burned from participating validators' vote accounts. The first deduction, at the start of epoch 1064, will cover participation in epoch 1065. Epoch 1064 is estimated to begin Oct. 21 at about 9:20 a.m. ET (13:20 UTC). TowerBFT is expected to run for another 5,000 slots, or roughly 18 minutes, before the [planned Alpenglow handoff](). Alpenglow's first phase, Votor, will have validators exchange votes directly and combine them into certificates instead of recording each vote in a block. As a result, dashboards that count validator votes as transactions are expected to show lower totals even if other network activity holds steady. Comparisons across the switch will need to account for the change. Ordinary transaction execution will remain the same. Votor is designed to bring transaction finality to about 150 milliseconds, compared with roughly 12.8 seconds under TowerBFT. Rotor, a later change to how blocks spread across the network, has no scheduled release date. The next step is the start of epoch 1064, followed by the 5,000-slot window before the consensus handoff. ## Links in this article - [planned Alpenglow handoff](https://www.tokenpost.com/news/technology/36424)