RFS DeFi Risk Intelligence Weekly

Solana (Alpenglow): Validators are voting to reduce finality time (proposal SIMD-0326); weekend tests hit ~107k TPS. Deep Dive Below:

The Solana "Alpenglow" vote refers to a proposal (SIMD-0326) that is being put to a vote by Solana's validators. The proposal, if approved, would represent a major overhaul of the core consensus protocol, replacing the existing Proof-of-History (PoH) and TowerBFT mechanisms.

Here's a breakdown of the key aspects of the Alpenglow proposal:

• Faster Finality: The primary goal of Alpenglow is to dramatically reduce the time it takes for a transaction to be considered final. The current finality time is approximately 12.8 seconds, and Alpenglow aims to cut this down to as low as 100-150 milliseconds. This would bring Solana's performance much closer to that of traditional Web2 applications, enabling new use cases like high-frequency trading and real-time gaming.

• New Consensus Architecture: Alpenglow introduces a new consensus protocol built around two core components:

  • Votor: This is a new voting protocol that replaces on-chain vote transactions. It operates by having validators exchange votes off-chain and use cryptographic proofs to attest to consensus. This eliminates the need for validators to pay transaction fees for voting, which has been a significant operational cost.

  • Rotor: This is an improved block propagation protocol designed to replace the current Turbine system. Rotor is expected to make data dissemination more efficient and reliable.

• Validator Economics: The proposal also includes a significant change to validator economics. Since voting would move off-chain and no longer require transaction fees, Alpenglow introduces a Validator Admission Ticket (VAT), a fixed fee that validators would pay per epoch. This fee is designed to maintain an economic barrier to participation, similar to the costs validators currently incur through vote fees, and to offset inflation.

• Improved Resilience: The new protocol is designed with a "20+20" resilience model, which means it can tolerate up to 20% of validators being adversarial (malicious) and another 20% being offline or unresponsive, without halting network progress.

• Voting Process: The vote itself is a governance process carried out by Solana's validators. The proposal passes if the number of "Yes" votes is equal to or greater than two-thirds of the total "Yes" plus "No" votes. There is also a quorum threshold that must be met

Ethereum: Post-Pectra ecosystem continues growth. The expansion of middleware and AA features introduces new attack surfaces. Deep Dive Below:

The Ethereum ecosystem has undergone significant changes since the Pectra upgrade, which went live on May 7, 2025. Pectra combined the Prague execution layer and Electra consensus layer updates, implementing 11 Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) aimed at enhancing scalability, user experience, and validator efficiency. 

Here's a breakdown of the post-Pectra ecosystem:

Scaling and Layer-2 Solutions

• Expanded Blob Capacity: Pectra doubled the blob capacity per block, increasing the target from three to six blobs and the maximum from six to nine. This significantly expands Ethereum's data capacity for rollups, leading to lower transaction fees and increased throughput on layer-2 solutions like Arbitrum and Optimism. Everstake reports that blob usage increased by 21% after the upgrade.

• Encouraging Blob Usage: EIP-7623 makes storing data directly on the Ethereum blockchain (calldata) more expensive, incentivizing developers to utilize blobs, which are a more efficient and cost-effective alternative for Layer-2s.

• Future Scaling: Pectra lays the groundwork for further scalability improvements like PeerDAS (Peer Data Availability Sampling) and Verkle trees, designed to make data handling more efficient and reduce node storage requirements. 

Validator and Staking improvements

• Increased Validator Stake Limit: EIP-7251 raised the maximum effective balance for validators from 32 ETH to 2048 ETH. This allows large-scale stakers to consolidate their ETH into fewer validators, simplifying operations, reducing networking overhead, and enabling efficient reward auto-compounding.

• Faster Activation and Withdrawals: EIP-6110 and EIP-7002 accelerate validator onboarding and simplify the exit process by allowing execution layer-triggered withdrawals. This streamlines staking and enhances flexibility for stakers.

• Validator Consolidation: Early data suggests some validator consolidation is occurring, potentially leading to a slight increase in the average stake per validator. 

User Experience Enhancements

• Account Abstraction: EIP-7702 allows Externally Owned Accounts (EOAs) to temporarily behave like smart contracts, enabling features like gasless transactions, batched transactions, and custom authentication methods. Elementus reports that this is a significant step towards a more intuitive and user-friendly experience on Ethereum.

• Developer Flexibility: Account abstraction also provides developers with greater flexibility in designing wallets and dApps, simplifying user interactions and opening doors for innovative applications. 

Impact and Outlook

• Lower Fees: The expansion of blob capacity and optimization of data handling have resulted in near-zero blob fees, significantly benefiting Layer-2 solutions and their users.

• Improved Scalability and Efficiency: Pectra has improved Ethereum's scalability by increasing transaction capacity and streamlining validator operations.

• Enhanced User Experience: Account abstraction has the potential to remove friction and make interacting with Ethereum easier and more accessible for a wider audience.

• Continued Development: Ethereum's development continues beyond Pectra, with the next major upgrade, Fusaka, slated for November 2025. Fusaka will focus on further scalability enhancements and node resilience, potentially incorporating features like block-time reduction and Verkle trees. 

In essence, the post-Pectra ecosystem reflects a more mature and efficient Ethereum network, better positioned to support the growing demand for decentralized applications and services through improved scalability, a more streamlined staking process, and a more user-friendly experience.