Solana slot time cut to 250ms trims vote credit losses

Solana slot time cut to 250ms trims validator vote credit losses

The Solana slot time now targets 250ms, and a Foundation study published Sept. 28 finds lost vote credits fell to 1.64% from 2.11%.

The quick take

Trigger: A Solana Foundation study measured the network after its block target fell from 400ms to 250ms.
Watch: The next step, 200ms, has no mainnet date.

What happened

Solana ($SOL) now aims to produce a block every 250 milliseconds, down from 400ms. A Solana Foundation study published Sept. 28 finds the shorter Solana slot time kept the network stable.

The study, by Umberto Natale, follows the cuts from 400ms to 350ms, 300ms and then 250ms. The first step began at block 440,208,000, in epoch 1,019. Solana’s Sept. 18 changelog lists the 250ms target among features live on mainnet.

Skipped slots, where no block lands, stayed “stable and low,” the study says. It found no link between shorter slots and the skip rate.

Validators also lost fewer vote credits, which help set staking rewards. Counted equally, they lost 1.64% of credits at 250ms, compared with 2.11% at 400ms. Weighted by stake, the loss fell to 0.09% from 0.26%.

That gap points to smaller operators. Validators with smaller stakes missed more of their credits than the stake-weighted average. CryptoSlate notes that a lost credit is not the same as a lost reward, since payouts depend on other factors too.

The longest stretch in which one leader controls transaction order also shrank. At the 99th percentile, it fell from about 3 seconds to about 2 seconds. That leaves less time to profit from reordering trades.

What to watch next

The Foundation says the debate over 200ms is now “increasingly philosophical and economic, rather than purely technical.” Still, vote latency rose, most for nodes in Asia and South America. The study says that suggests caution on 200ms before Alpenglow, a planned upgrade aimed at 150ms finality.

The sample is small so far. At 250ms, the Foundation had just seven leader handoffs from Asia to Oceania and 35 from Europe to Oceania, CryptoSlate reports. CoinDesk reported on Sept. 18 that 200ms has no mainnet date.

Bottom line: Solana’s 250ms blocks held up in the first data, but smaller validators and the 200ms step remain open questions.