Protocol radar
What changes next on Solana — and when
Every protocol upgrade, watched on-chain across mainnet, testnet and devnet. Queued upgrades get a live countdown; the ones that break things get a plain-English guide.
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Up next
SIMD-0385Pending testnet activation on Anza's official schedule ↗
Mainnet activations begin two full epochs after 95% of stake adopts the release.
No official date exists. Once 95% is crossed, mainnet activations begin two full epochs later — ≈ 3.2 days at today’s pace.
4,096-byte transactions in a new wire format: resource limits move into the message, lookup tables are gone, and un-upgraded readers start failing the moment it activates.
Queued 0
Nothing queued right now — activations appear here the moment they are requested on-chain.
On deck 18
Slot Time → 250ms
SIMD-0525-3Slot time step 3 of 4: a block every 250ms, down from the 300ms running today — faster confirmations for everything on Solana.
officially scheduled · at this pace ≈ within a day or twoSlot Time → 200ms
SIMD-0525-4Slot time step 4 of 4: the 200ms target — halving block times from where the year started.
officially scheduled · at this pace ≈ Sep 8Direct Account Pointers
SIMD-0449Programs read account inputs through direct pointers instead of copies — faster account access.
officially scheduledTransaction V1
SIMD-03854,096-byte transactions in a new wire format: resource limits move into the message, lookup tables are gone, and un-upgraded readers start failing the moment it activates.
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Maps account data directly into program memory instead of copying it on every load.
officially scheduledVirtual Address Space Adjustments
SIMD-0460Adjusts the SVM's virtual address space layout.
officially scheduledRent Cut — Step 2 of 5
SIMD-0437-2Lowers rent to 5,080 lamports per byte.
Rent Cut — Step 3 of 5
SIMD-0437-3Lowers rent to 2,575 lamports per byte.
Rent Cut — Step 4 of 5
SIMD-0437-4Lowers rent to 1,322 lamports per byte.
Rent Cut — Step 5 of 5
SIMD-0437-5The final step: 696 lamports per byte, completing the 90% rent cut.
Rent Cut Rollback
SIMD-0438The safety valve for the rent cut: restores the legacy 6,960 lamports-per-byte rate if a reduction step needs reverting.
not scheduledAlpenglow
SIMD-0326The new consensus algorithm — the largest consensus change since launch, targeting dramatically faster finality.
not scheduledAlpenglow Fast Leader Handover
SIMD-0326Alpenglow companion gate: fast leader handover between slots.
not scheduledCPI Nesting Limit 4 → 8
SIMD-0268Raises the cross-program-invocation depth limit from 4 to 8, unblocking deeper program composition.
not scheduledRetire SBPF v0–v2 Deployment
SIMD-0500Disables deployment of programs targeting the legacy SBPF v0, v1 and v2 bytecode formats.
not scheduledBlock Revenue Sharing
SIMD-0123In-protocol sharing of block revenue between validators and their stakers.
not scheduled
Activated 18
Rent Cut — Step 1 of 5
SIMD-0437-1Lowers rent from 6,960 to 6,333 lamports per byte — the first of five feature-gated reductions on the way to a 90% cut.
Relaxed Min-Balance Check
SIMD-0392Relaxes the post-execution minimum-balance check.
active since epoch 1027 · ≈ 4 days agoBPF Stake Program v5.1.0
SIMD-0391Upgrades the BPF stake program to v5.1.0 with fixed-point warmup and cooldown math.
active since epoch 1026 · ≈ 5 days agoSlot Time → 300ms
SIMD-0525-2Slot time step 2 of 4: blocks every 300ms.
active since epoch 1023 · ≈ 10 days agoSlot Time → 350ms
SIMD-0525-1Slot time step 1 of 4: blocks every 350ms instead of 400ms.
active since epoch 1019 · ≈ 2 weeks ago
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Block Limit → 100M CU
SIMD-0286Raises the per-block compute limit to 100 million compute units — more work per block.
active since epoch 1009 · 5 weeks agoFee-Only Transaction Semantics
SIMD-0186Defines fee-only semantics: transactions that fail account loading still pay their fee, deterministically.
active since epoch 1008 · 5 weeks agoAlpenglow VAT
SIMD-0357Alpenglow groundwork: the VAT implementation lands ahead of the consensus switch.
active since epoch 1006 · 6 weeks agoAlpenglow Handover Markers
SIMD-0337Markers for Alpenglow fast leader handover and shred placement rules.
active since epoch 1005 · ≈ 5 weeks agoCommission in Basis Points
SIMD-0291Validator commission moves from whole percents to basis points — finer-grained rates.
active since epoch 1003 · 7 weeks agoLoader V3 Minimum Extend Size
SIMD-0431A minimum extend size for Loader V3 program deployments.
active since epoch 1002 · 7 weeks agoMaximum Instruction Accounts
SIMD-0406Enforces a protocol-level cap on accounts per instruction.
active since epoch 1000 · 8 weeks agoBLS Pubkey Management
SIMD-0387BLS public keys in vote accounts — consensus groundwork for Alpenglow.
active since epoch 999 · 2 months agoTightens which memory addresses syscall parameters may reference.
active since epoch 995 · 2 months agoSBPF v3 Programs
SIMD-0178Enables deployment and execution of SBPFv3 programs (with SIMD-0189 and SIMD-0377).
active since epoch 993 · 2 months agoValidate Chained Block ID
SIMD-0340Validates the chained block id across a slot's shreds.
active since epoch 992 · ≈ 8 weeks agoChained Block ID — Full Check
SIMD-0340The encompassing check completing chained block id validation.
active since epoch 992 · ≈ 8 weeks agoDelay Commission Updates
SIMD-0249Validator commission changes take effect at the next epoch instead of immediately.
active since epoch 991 · 2 months ago
What a feature gate is
Solana ships protocol changes behind on-chain switches. Each switch is a tiny account anyone can read — which is exactly what this page does.
Why "queued" means days, not months
Once an upgrade is queued, the network activates it at the next epoch boundary — at most about two days away. That is why queued upgrades get a countdown.
Testnet goes first
Upgrades usually activate on testnet before mainnet, so the testnet column is a preview of what mainnet does next.
Read from the chain, not from announcements
The status here comes from reading the switches themselves, refreshed about every minute. When nothing is scheduled, we say so — no invented dates.