Solana’s Alpenglow Upgrade Changes What Transaction Counts Show

Solana’s Alpenglow upgrade changed what headline transaction totals include, making non-vote counts a more comparable measure of activity across the switch in how validators record votes.

The upgrade activated at about 9:36 a.m. ET (13:36 UTC) on Oct. 21, at epoch 1064. Alpenglow consensus began at slot 459,653,000.

Before the change, TowerBFT validators sent votes as transactions. The Votor protocol now sends votes directly between validators and bundles them into certificates. The Solana Foundation says, “Vote transactions are no longer in blocks.”

That change affects comparisons of total transaction counts and transactions per second across the upgrade. A lower total after the switch can reflect the removal of vote transactions from blocks, rather than a matching decline in activity outside validator voting. The upgrade’s effect on transaction-count baselines was covered earlier.

Solana’s getRecentPerformanceSamples RPC method provides recent samples covering 60 seconds, including total transactions and non-vote transactions. Comparing non-vote counts on both sides of the change holds the vote category out of the measurement. The method also reports the sample period.

A public dashboard lists total transactions, successful and failed non-vote transactions, and vote transactions as separate metrics. It refreshes twice daily after 10 a.m. and 10 p.m. ET, with a one-day lag. The separate categories let readers distinguish a shift in the overall total from changes in non-vote counts.

Alpenglow’s 150-millisecond figure is a target for finality, the point at which a transaction is treated as irreversible. It is separate from Solana’s slot time, which was reduced to 200 milliseconds in stages completed in October. These timings describe different parts of the network and do not change how vote transactions are counted in blocks.