Solana cuts block times to 350ms as SOL tops $100

Solana cut mainnet block times to 350 milliseconds from 400, the first step toward a 200-millisecond target that took effect Aug. 21.

Trillium, a Solana validator-telemetry provider, measured a slot-weighted mean of 365.4 milliseconds across 431,505 timed slots in epoch 1021, down from 420.7 milliseconds in pre-change epoch 1015. The faster cadence cut the four-slot leader window to 1.4 seconds from 1.6, while skipped blocks fell to 331, or 0.077 percent, from 1,890, or 0.438 percent, across the two epochs.

The 300-millisecond stage is expected to activate at epoch 1024 around Aug. 28, according to Anza CEO Brennan Watt, who authored the SIMD-0525 proposal behind the change. Solana's official roadmap calls for distinct steps to 300, 250 and eventually 200 milliseconds, with each feature gate carrying a one-epoch delay so validators can apply the timing and reduced shred limits together.

SOL traded at $101.70, up 4.87 percent over 24 hours and 38.99 percent over 30 days, after reclaiming $100 for the first time in six months on a 40 percent eight-day climb. The network logged a record 4.2 billion transactions in July, up 13.5 percent month over month and 91 percent since December.

Faster slots, unchanged throughput

Shortening the slot window reduces the wall-clock time for confirmation thresholds measured in slots. The proposal keeps four slots per leader and 432,000 slots per epoch, while scaling per-slot compute, account-write, vote, data and shred limits down with each shorter target. Blocks arrive more frequently and carry smaller budgets, leaving approximate work capacity per second broadly unchanged.

Solana can pause between stages if skipped-block rates climb, making the 350-millisecond stage a live test of how much validator timing can tighten before the path to 200 milliseconds continues. The 365.4-millisecond telemetry reading supports faster block-level feedback, while finality remains a separate metric.

Record activity lifts SOL past $100

SOL touched an intraday peak of $102.88 before pulling back toward $88, with buyers quickly absorbing the dip and lifting prices back into the mid-$90 range. The rally followed a 40 percent eight-day climb that pushed the token above $100 for the first time since February.

The network's most active seven-day stretch on record came during the week of Aug. 17-23, logging 1.32 billion non-vote transactions. Decentralized exchange activity on Solana surged 103 percent week over week to $20.14 billion, with Jupiter, the network's dominant DEX aggregator, commanding 71 percent of all aggregator transactions. Total stablecoin supply on Solana climbed to $15.94 billion, with USDC representing 44.95 percent, while tokenized real-world assets reached $3.97 billion, up 11.81 percent over 30 days, per RWA.xyz.

A macro tailwind emerged Aug. 19 when the U.S. Treasury Department said it would at least double its liquidity-support buyback capacity for long-dated government bonds to $4 billion per operation from $2 billion. The 30-year Treasury yield fell from a 19-year peak of 5.34 percent to about 5.19 percent, easing pressure on risk assets and contributing to one of the crypto sector's strongest single-day rallies since March.

SOL still trades substantially below its January 2025 all-time peak near $295. U.S. spot Solana exchange-traded funds, which debuted in late 2025, had accumulated more than $1.12 billion in total net inflows by May 2026.

The faster block times strengthen Solana's competitive position against Ethereum and other layer-1 networks as the 300-millisecond stage tests whether validator timing can hold without raising skipped-block rates. If the network clears that hurdle, the path to 200-millisecond slots — and sub-second confirmation — remains open.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.