Solana’s Major Update Incoming on May 27:
Solana is preparing to launch a significant update, version v1.18, on May 27 for its mainnet beta. This update is essential to address the network’s ongoing congestion issues.
Roadmap to Solana’s V1.18 Update:
The network has been experiencing congestion problems, exacerbated by an influx of bot-driven transactions involving meme coins, resulting in a spike in transaction failures.
- Solana’s development team has been actively introducing upgrades to enhance network performance in response to these challenges.
- Collaborating with Anza, they launched version 1.18.11 on the devnet on April 13, with validators currently testing the new version.
Key Milestones of the V1.18 Release Schedule:
- 1st Milestone (January 22, 2024):
- Create a v1.18 branch
- Upgrade the master branch to version 2.0.0
- Testnet upgrade to v1.18.0
- 5th Milestone (February 19, 2024):
- Devnet upgrade to v1.18
- 8th Milestone (April 30, 2024):
- Tag Mainnet-beta Upgrade Candidate (MUC) on the v1.18 branch
- Testnet upgrade to MUC
- 9th Milestone (May 6, 2024):
- Testnet live downgrade to v1.17, upgrade to MUC (100%)
- Mainnet-beta solicit volunteers to upgrade to v1.18 with 10% stake
- 10th Milestone (May 13, 2024):
- Mainnet-beta seek volunteers to upgrade to v1.18 with 25% stake
- 11th Milestone (May 20, 2024):
- Testnet live downgrade to v1.17, upgrade to MUC (100%)
- Mainnet-beta call for volunteers to upgrade to v1.18 with 10% stake
- 12th Milestone (May 27, 2024):
- Mainnet-beta recommend all nodes upgrade to v1.18
Technical and Market Updates:
- Developers released version 1.17.31 on April 15 to address congestion issues, recommended for immediate use by MainnetBeta validators.
- Despite technical progress, Solana has faced significant market volatility, with a value drop of over 22% since the beginning of the month.
Price Performance of Solana (SOL):
Solana witnessed a price drop to $116 earlier in April but has since rebounded to trade around $158.