Delphi Digital: Solana will usher in the most radical technological upgrading cycle in history
Original title:2026 is the Year of Solana
Photo by Delphi Digital
This post is part of our special coverage Libya Protests 2011
The 2026 Road Map of Solana is probably the most radical upgrading cycle in the history of the network, from consensus mechanisms to the overhaul of infrastructure to a decentralized NASDAQ。
Solana ' s road map aims to transform it into an environment at the level of an exchange in which the original chain of centralized limited order books (CLOB) can compete with the Centralized Exchange (CEX) in terms of delay, depth of liquidity and fairness. The following are all the upgrades to achieve this goal。
Alpenglow: A comprehensive overhaul of the Consensus Mechanism
Alpenglow is the most significant change in Solana's history. It introduced an entirely new consensus structure, structured around two core components: Votor and Rotor。
Votor has overhauled the way the network reaches consensus. It no longer links multiple rounds of voting, but allows the certifying officers to vote under the chain and to submit final confirmation within one or two rounds. The result was a reduction in the theoretical final confirmation time from 12.8 seconds to 100-150 milliseconds。
Votor runs two final confirmed paths in parallel. If a block receives overwhelming support in the first round (more than 80% interest), final confirmation will be completed immediately. If the support rate is between 60 and 80%, the second round of voting is initiated. If the second round is also over 60%, the block is finally confirmed. This design ensures that final confirmation can be achieved even if part of the network is not responsive。
Rotor has introduced innovations in block dissemination mechanisms, through direct access by high-interest and stable bandwidth certifiers。
Alpenglow also introduced the "20+20" elastic model: security is guaranteed as long as the total entitlement to malicious acts does not exceed 20%; even with an additional 20% offline, the system remains active. This means that Alpenglow is still able to maintain final confirmation when up to 40% of the nodes in the network are either malicious or offline。
Under Alpenglow, the Proof of History mechanism has in fact been discarded and replaced by a definite time slot and local timer. The upgrade is expected to be rolled out from early to mid-2026。
Firedancer: Time performance improvements
Since its inception, Solana has relied on a single certifier client (now known as Agave). This homogenization has long been one of the core weaknesses of the network. Any loophole or malfunction at the client level could lead to a grid-wide shutdown。
Firedancer is a second independent certifier client developed by Jump, written using C++. Its design objective is to transform the certificationer for Solana into a definitive, high-volume-absorption engine capable of processing millions of TPS with minimal delay differences。
Frankendancer is its transitional version, combining Firedancer's network and block production modules with Agave's running time and consensus components. As Firedancer progresses towards major web readiness, the diversity of the certifying officers is expected to increase significantly。
Against the background of this competitive relationship, both teams have engaged in extensive iterative processes。
DouleZero: high performance fibre-optic infrastructure
DoubleZero is a private network cover that is certified by dedicated fibre-optic connections, the same infrastructure as the network used by traditional exchanges (e.g. NASDAQ and CME) for microsecond transmission。
The dissemination of information has become more difficult as the pool of certifiers has expanded. The number of nodes means the number of destinations, which can introduce inconsistent timing into the network. DoubleZero eliminates this difference by passing news on the best routes, rather than jumping back on the public Internet。
Alpenglow's final confirmation model relies on the certifier to receive and respond to messages within a strict time window. If dissemination is inconsistent, voting is delayed, the quorum is slower and final confirmation takes longer. By closing the delay gap between the certifiers, DoubleZero allows Votor to complete final confirmation more quickly and makes Rotor's transmission more even。
DoubleZero also supports grouping to copy data within the network and transmit them simultaneously to all certifyers。
Block Build: BAM and Harmonic
Two complementary trends are reshaping the building layers of the blocks in Solana:
BAM (the block assembly market, Black Assembly Marketplace) is Jito's re-vision of the Solana trading pipeline. It is no longer a unilateral ranking of transactions by the slot leader, but rather a market and privacy layer is inserted between ranking and execution. The transaction is imported into a credible execution environment (TEE), which means that neither the certifier nor the builder can see the original transaction before the ranking takes effect. This prevents opportunistic pre-execution such as runaways。
Harmonic aims at the other end of the pipeline -- who builds blocks. It introduced an open block builder polymer layer, enabling the certificationer to accept block proposals in real time from multiple competition builders. Harmonic can be considered a dollar market, and BAM is a micromarket。
Raiku: Certain enforcement guarantees
Raiku filled the remaining gaps. Solana can be said to have solved most of the throughput bottlenecks, but originals do not provide certainty or programmable performance guarantees for specific applications. The blending of the high frequency (HFT) style and the particle content control required by the chain-based limited price order book (CLOB) are well beyond what can reasonably be provided by a network (L1)。
Raiku provides a scheduling/auction layer running in parallel with Solana certifiers to provide a programmable and definitive pre-implementation environment for applications without changing the L1 consensus mechanism. It achieves secure enforcement through forward (Ahead-of-Time, AOT) transactions for pre-submitted work streams, and immediate (Just-in-Time, JIT) transactions to meet real-time implementation needs。
Bringing capital markets into the chain
In high-performance public chains, Solana remains the dominant, but without users and efficient chain-based markets, this dominance is meaningless. Although the vast majority of Meme coins are still traded on Solana, the chain-to-renewal contract markets are rapidly concentrated on a few platforms。
In order to compete with a centralist player, performance must be comparable. We believe that Solana ecology is aware of the problem and optimistic about narrowing the gap. The upcoming upgrade is expected, and there will be a new Solana life-long contract exchange like BULK on line at the beginning of the year。
The demand for retail users to trade spot assets on Solana remains high. While Hyperliquid temporarily took over the market for a lasting contract, Solana has established its preferred L1 status as a free spot transaction. The Centralized Exchange is still a big lead, but Solana is now the top trader in the chain。
Products like xstocks are introducing chain stocks directly into Solana. Liquidity, price discovery and speculative attention are being concentrated in a single chain that provides faster settlements, better user experience and more intensive capital。
That is why Solana introduced capital markets into the chain。
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