- Solana Labs spinout Anza has proposed a new Solana consensus mechanism
- Known as Alpenglow, it builds on the existing proof-of-stake (PoS) system
- Anza believes the new consensus “will be a turning point for Solana”
Solana Labs offshoot Anza has proposed changing the Solana blockchain’s consensus mechanism to a new consensus called Alpenglow. Although Alpenglow builds on the existing proof-of-stake (PoS) system, Anza believes it “will be a turning point for Solana,” adding that it’ll bring the “biggest change” to the blockchain’s core protocol. Alpenglow proposes a new block finalization logic and a faster way to timestamp transactions on the network, something that will improve Solana’s transaction processing speeds.
Replacing Proof-of-History With Rotor
According to Anza, the proposed consensus is tailored to improve Solana’s performance by removing the network’s legacy components like “TowerBFT and Proof-of-History.” Alpenglow replaces these components with Votor and Rotor.
1/ Introducing the largest Solana Protocol change ever: Alpenglow, Solana’s new consensus protocol conceived by the Anza Research team. Say goodbye to Tower BFT and Proof of History. Say hello to Votor & Rotor 🧵👇 pic.twitter.com/KPNQxQ1jBg
— Anza (@anza_xyz) May 19, 2025
Votor takes over voting, block finalization logic, and introduces “a faster direct communication primitive.” It also determines the number of voting rounds depending on the percentage of participating stakes.
Rotor, on the other hand, is an upgrade of Solana’s Turbine engine that focuses on data dissemination. Rotor uses a single layer of relay nodes to reduce the number of network hops.
Anza hopes to use the new consensus method to reduce the time between block creation and block finality from 12.8 seconds to “about 150 milliseconds.” It added that the time can be reduced further to 100 milliseconds, which is an “unbelievably low number for a world-wide L1 blockchain protocol.”
Competing With Web2 Infrastructure
Anza noted that a latency of 150 milliseconds will allow Solana to compete with web2 infrastructure “in terms of responsiveness,” enabling it to handle applications that require real-time performance.
The proposed change in Solana’s consensus mechanism comes two weeks after Solana patched a critical zero-day vulnerability and two months after Solana stakeholders rejected a proposal to reduce the blockchain’s inflation rate.
It also comes at a time when Ethereum is contemplating replacing the Ethereum virtual machine and addressing layer-1 scaling challenges.
With Alpenglow seemingly better than the existing mechanism, Solana will likely embrace it.
