Jacob Creech, Vice President of Technology at the Solana Foundation, revealed on August 21 that Solana's slot time has been reduced to 350 milliseconds. This is the first reduction since the network's inception and marks the first step in the transition from 400 milliseconds to 200 milliseconds based on the approved proposal SIMD-0525. The reduction will proceed in four stages of 50 milliseconds each, with each stage activated in separate epochs through individual feature gates. The goal is to activate all four stages in the Agave v4.2 client developed by Anza, though the schedule is said to be tentative. The foundation cited improved competitiveness and censorship resistance from lower latency as reasons, and while some see limited direct impact on the price of SOL, it is considered material that supports the narrative of being the fastest chain.
Solana Foundation announces the reduction, supporting the fastest chain narrative.
Anza develops Agave v4.2 client to implement the four-stage slot time reduction.