Solana Nears Alpenglow Upgrade: Can SOL Reclaim H2 High of $125?

TradingKey - Solana to Launch Alpenglow Upgrade on October 21; Can SOL Return to Second-Half Highs?

According to an October 14 report by unfolded, Layer-1 network Solana (SOL) will launch the Alpenglow upgrade next Wednesday (October 21). As of press time, SOL is up 0.7% intraday, trading at $107.15, receiving golden support at the 0.382 Fibonacci level.

Solana price chart, Source: TradingView

The Alpenglow upgrade is regarded as Solana's largest architectural innovation since its inception. Its primary goal is to drastically shorten transaction finality by 100 times, from approximately 12.8 seconds down to 100–150 milliseconds (ms)—a speed even surpassing traditional Visa card processing—clearing obstacles for high-frequency decentralized finance (DeFi) and micropayments.

In addition, this upgrade will free up 75% of block space, driving ultimate deflation and cost reduction. Specifically, the upgrade completely removes on-chain voting transactions that occupied 75% of Solana's block space, replacing them with ultra-lightweight off-chain verification. Validator node operating costs will plummet by 98%, and the minimum profitable staking threshold will drop from 4,850 SOL to around 450 SOL, significantly enhancing network decentralization and validator earnings.

This year, Near Protocol (NEAR) has demonstrated strong demand in the AI-agent micropayment domain, driving NEAR's price to surge 250% over the past six months. The Alpenglow upgrade directly establishes Solana's dominant position in AI-to-AI on-chain automated settlement and decentralized order book exchanges, with the potential to replicate or even challenge Near, helping the SOL price return to its late-September high of $125, provided the mainnet upgrade goes smoothly and Bitcoin (BTC) holds above the $80,000 level.