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Solana Alpenglow upgrade approved: Performance improvement boosts SOL to break through 215 dollars? Analysts clash over bullish and bearish viewpoints | SOL price prediction
The Solana network has officially undergone its largest upgrade in history, Alpenglow, with 98% of validators supporting the new protocol. Transaction finality will be reduced from 12.8 seconds to 150 milliseconds. The SOL price has responded with a rise of 6.5%, breaking through $209, but there are still concerns about the sharp decline in on-chain DEX volume and the ongoing battle with key technical resistance levels. This article provides an in-depth analysis of the upgrade details, market reactions, and the divergence in price predictions for Solana from bullish and bearish analysts.
Solana Alpenglow Upgrade Core Transformation
Solana governance voting passed the SIMD-0326 proposal on Tuesday with a high approval rate of 98.27%, far exceeding the 33% statutory threshold. The Alpenglow protocol, designed by the research company Anza, will replace the original TowerBFT and Proof-of-History mechanisms, introducing the Votor direct voting system and the Rotor timestamp processor, achieving a generational leap in blockchain performance.
Technical Breakthrough: Web2 Level Response Speed and Economic Model Restructuring
After the upgrade, the transaction finality time will be compressed from 12.8 seconds to 100-150 milliseconds, achieving Web2-level response speed for the first time on an L1 public chain. The Votor system directly exchanges validated votes through cryptographic aggregation, eliminating high-bandwidth gossip traffic; Rotor optimizes the timestamp synchronization of validators, reducing data transmission latency. In terms of the economic model, validators pay 1.6 SOL as an admission ticket per epoch instead of the original voting transaction fee, reducing bandwidth consumption while maintaining the network's security barrier.
Market Immediate Reaction and Price Trends
The SOL price has risen by 6.5% to $209 in the last 24 hours, significantly outperforming Bitcoin's 2.1% and Ethereum's 0.6% gains. Analyst Shawn Young pointed out that institutional holdings exceed $1.7 billion combined with favorable technical upgrades, and SOL is expected to surge to $215 by the end of September, with a year-end target of $250. However, the current price is testing the key resistance zone between $200 and $206, which has recently suppressed upward momentum multiple times.
On-chain Data Warning Signals
Cryptocurrency analyst Crypto Rover has monitored that the DEX trading volume on the Solana blockchain has fallen to its lowest level since mid-2024, and the sharp decrease in the number of independent traders indicates a cooling in DeFi layer participation. A low liquidity environment may amplify price fluctuations, and if the $195 support level cannot be held, it may trigger a deeper adjustment to $182.
Technical Analysis of Bull and Bear Struggles
Bullish outlook: Analyst Chad pointed out that the weekly Ichimoku cloud is thinning, and the resistance level for breakout is decreasing. If the weekly close stabilizes above the cloud, it will initiate a strong pump trend.
Bearish outlook: Altstreet Bets, based on the Elliott Wave Theory, suggests that if it loses the current support or falls towards the historical demand zone of 85-90 USD, it must strongly reclaim 210 USD to reverse the bearish market structure.
Mainnet Launch Schedule and Ecological Impact
Alpenglow will deploy the testnet during the Solana Breakpoint conference in December 2025, with a full mainnet upgrade completed in Q1 2026. The Solana Foundation emphasizes that this upgrade will unlock new use cases requiring high speed and cryptographic certainty, particularly enhancing the speed and security of exchange deposits.
Conclusion
Solana is facing a fundamental battle between the positive impact of its technical upgrades and a soft market. The performance breakthrough of Alpenglow undoubtedly strengthens its long-term competitiveness, but in the short term, it needs to break through the 206 USD resistance and boost on-chain activity to validate the sustainability of the rise. Traders should closely monitor the outcome of the battle for the psychological barrier at 200 USD, as this position will determine the direction of the next phase of the trend.