Solana Gears Up for Major Upgrade: Bigger Blocks, Improved Scalability, and Enhanced Developer Experience with Agave v2.2 Rollout

Solana (SOL), a high-performance blockchain, is set to undergo a significant upgrade that is expected to enhance its scalability and throughput. The announcement was made on Monday, May 5, by Helius, Solana’s development optimization service, regarding the rollout of Agave v2.2, an updated version of the Solana validator client. This upgrade is expected to increase the capacity of Solana’s blocks by 20%, in addition to introducing an array of improvements aimed at enhancing network scalability and throughput.

The upgrade will see block limits increase from 50 million to 60 million compute units, improving throughput and scalability by enabling the network to process more transactions per second. This improvement will also help Solana tackle congestion, an issue the network has previously grappled with.

Another significant change coming with Agave 2.2 is the replacement of Merkle trees with Account lattice hash. This means that updates to the accounts will only track changes, rather than the entire data, resulting in a significant reduction in network load. Ben Hawkins, the head of the staking ecosystem at the Solana Foundation, elaborated on this change, comparing the computational complexities of Merkle trees and Account lattice hash.

The Agave 2.2 upgrade also promises a more efficient and user-friendly experience for developers. Developers will now have the ability to pause and update their apps whenever bugs are detected, without needing to delete them. Additionally, the upgrade allows developers to update specific parts of an app rather than having to re-upload the entire codebase, which will save on compute resources.

Moreover, developers will now be able to connect app components without having to circumvent caller restrictions, which have been lifted under Agave 2.2. For end-users, Solana has added password-less login support, an enhancement that promises to make apps more secure for Web2 users.

These upgrades come in the wake of a series of network-wide outages that Solana experienced in 2022, which resulted in widespread criticism over its stability and decentralization. These issues emerged following the collapse of FTX, a major validator for Solana. Since then, the network has not encountered technical difficulties of a comparable scale.

With the introduction of the new Agave 2.2 update, Solana is positioning itself to not only enhance its overall performance and user experience but also to address the concerns and criticisms that have previously been leveled against it. This upgrade signifies Solana’s commitment to continuous improvement and innovation, making it an exciting time for both developers and users engaged with the Solana network.