Solana's Alpenglow upgrade is expected to activate on October 21, with 151 validators still flagged as unprepared. Those validators hold 20.3% of stake. Meanwhile, SOL trades near $104.
Solana's Alpenglow consensus upgrade is expected to activate on October 21, 2026, at approximately 13:20 UTC. A readiness snapshot taken on October 20 flagged 151 validators holding 20.3% of the network's stake as unprepared.
What validators need before the switch
Validators must meet three requirements to keep voting. They need to run an Agave-based client at version 4.3.2, and each needs a registered BLS public key. Each must also keep at least 0.8 SOL in its vote account to cover a new flat fee tied to the Validator Admission Ticket model.
Most of the flagged validators fell short because of outdated client versions or vote accounts with too little SOL. Still, the 20.3% figure marks progress: earlier trackers showed about 45% of stake, roughly 198 million SOL, failing to meet all the criteria.
What Alpenglow changes
The new voting component, Votor, aims to cut finality from roughly 12.8 seconds to about 150 milliseconds. The upgrade also caps the active validator set at 2,000, ranked by stake weight.
The proposal passed with 98.27% approval in September 2025. However, only the first phase goes live in October, covering Votor plus the VAT and BLS requirements.
CoinGape adds that Quicknode warned transactions could briefly stop entering blocks during the switch. The 150-millisecond figure remains a performance target, and actual speeds depend on network conditions.
SOL holds near $104 before the launch
SOL fell 1.44% to $103.96 over the past 24 hours, according to CoinGape. Its analysis found the relative strength index at 47.24, below the 50 midpoint.
On the chart, $105 is the immediate upside target, followed by $110 if buyers sustain a breakout. A decisive four-hour close below $100 could expose $90.
Sources: Crypto Briefing, CoinGape
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