Solana’s New Performance Milestone: Boosting Throughput with Firedancer’s Proposal
In a significant development for the Solana network, the engineering team behind Firedancer, a high-performance validator client led by Jump, has submitted a proposal. This Solana Improvement Document (SIMD-0370) advocates for the removal of the network’s block-level compute unit (CU) limit, a change that promises to enhance throughput and reduce latency during high demand periods.
Solana’s Next Performance Leap Forward
The Firedancer Team introduced a pull request on September 24, 2025, specifically designed as a “post-Alpenglow” initiative. The Alpenglow update allows voter nodes to broadcast a SkipVote if they can’t execute a proposed block within the designated time frame. The authors of the proposal argue that this mechanism renders the protocol-enforced CU ceiling redundant.
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Technical and Economic Rationale
The document describes the current block-level CU limit as superfluous under Alpenglow’s updated scheduling rules. By removing it, the proposal aims to enhance economic alignment. The authors claim the existing CU cap limits capacity through protocol constraints rather than hardware and software advancements. Eliminating this cap would enable producers to optimize block capacity based on their machines’ capabilities, fostering competition among clients and hardware.
Implications for the Solana Ecosystem
Core contributors and client teams have highlighted the immediate benefits of this change for users. A reviewer noted, “Removing the limit today offers tangible advantages for the ecosystem and users without waiting for the future architecture of the network.” However, some block constraints, such as a “maximum shred limit,” will persist. Per-transaction CU limits might also remain for now, with any adjustments in that area requiring a separate discussion.
Security and Network Coordination
The proposal addresses security and liveness concerns by asserting that blocks too heavy to propagate are simply skipped, preserving network progress. The Firedancer authors emphasize that the core safeguard is the clock and propagation budget, not a fixed CU ceiling. Concerns regarding network coordination are also addressed, as overly ambitious producers naturally self-calibrate; missed blocks lead to missed rewards, which limits block size to what peers can handle.
Future Compatibility and Community Engagement
Importantly, SIMD-0370 is designed to be compatible with future network architectures. Although ongoing designs for multiple concurrent proposers may assume a block limit, removing the current limit does not hinder future developments. Anza, the Solana client team behind Agave, has also highlighted the proposal on social media, indicating widespread attention to this potential change.
Impact on Users and Developers
If SIMD-0370 is implemented, users and developers could benefit significantly during peak periods such as airdrops, mints, or market volatility. Blocks could contain more compute resources as long as they can be executed within slot time, potentially increasing throughput and stabilizing fees. Developers might experience less latency for demanding tasks, provided they optimize their programs for parallel execution.
Validators, in particular, would need to focus on execution efficiency, networking performance, and strategic block-building to maximize rewards while avoiding overly heavy blocks that could be skipped.
Community Review and Implementation
As with all Solana Improvement Documents, SIMD-0370 will undergo a community review process. Its implementation and coordination across validator clients are key steps before any potential deployment. However, the direction is clear: Solana’s design team believes the slot-time budget is the real constraint to address.
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