Solana's Alpenglow upgrade has entered the testing phase on the community test cluster, marking a significant step towards its mainnet launch. Announced by Anza, a Solana research and development company, the upgrade aims to enhance the Layer 1 network's speed and performance. The testing allows Solana validator operators to trial consensus upgrades before mainnet deployment. Max Resnick, Chief Economist at Anza, highlighted the milestone, noting that the Alpenglow source code has matured enough for real-world testing. The Alpenglow upgrade, approved by the validator community with 98% support, seeks to reconfigure Solana's consensus protocol to improve network speed, potentially reducing final confirmation times by 100 times. The upgrade is expected to launch on the mainnet by late Q3 or early Q4 2026, following successful tests on Anza's Agave validator and Solana's testnet. Currently, Solana's token trades at approximately $97.45, reflecting a 0.9% increase over the past 24 hours, though it remains significantly below its all-time high.