Solana surges amid community backing for Alpenglow proposal

Solana’s token SOL has pushed to levels not seen since February, lifted by renewed community confidence in a major network proposal.

Data from CryptoSlate shows SOL briefly rose above $215 this week, gaining more than 6% in the last 24 hours before easing slightly to $214 as of press time. This rally placed the token back at its strongest point since early February, when it last traded near $216.

According to analytics firm Santiment, retail sentiment has turned sharply positive, with investors making nearly six bullish comments for every bearish one. Notably, this is the highest ratio recorded in over two months.

Meanwhile, this price momentum has come despite slowing activity on Solana’s decentralized exchanges.

A Dune Analytics dashboard shows that the network’s daily active traders have dropped by more than 80% from January’s memecoin-driven peak of 5 million. For four straight days, user numbers have remained below the one million mark.

This decline reflects a clear pivot among retail investors on the network towards other blockchains like Ethereum.

Alpenglow update

The latest price momentum coincides with early community support for SIMD-0326 Alpenglow, a proposal described as one of the most significant consensus upgrades in Solana’s history.

The proposal seeks to simplify the network’s architecture by removing legacy components such as Proof of History, Tower BFT, and gossip-based vote propagation.

If implemented, the upgrade would reduce block finalization times to about 150 milliseconds, placing Solana in line with other high-speed platforms designed for trading applications.

Notably, Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko has publicly encouraged the community to support the proposal, describing it as a key step forward.

Unsurprisingly, early voting data indicate strong backing for the change, with 11.6% of Solana stakers endorsing Alpenglow, while only 0.1% have opposed it. Around 100 validators have already cast votes.

The community’s response suggests growing confidence that the network can deliver faster and more reliable performance at scale, even as retail trading activity undergoes a reset from its memecoin-driven highs.

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