The change, which the team suggested would be implemented following the deployment of the Alpenglow upgrade, could unlock a new regime of throughput by letting block producers have bigger blocks.
In a bold shift for Solana’s (SOL) scaling roadmap, Jump Crypto’s Firedancer development team has submitted a proposal, known as SIMD-0370, that would remove the block-level compute unit limit.
The change, which the team suggested would be implemented following the deployment of the Alpenglow upgrade, could unlock a new regime of throughput by letting block producers have bigger blocks.
Under today’s design, each block is bounded by a maximum allowable compute units, a safety measure and maximum workload meant to stop validators from getting overwhelmed. Currently, the limit on Solana is at 60 million compute-units. Earlier this year, another group of Solana core developers submitted a paper arguing to lift the limit to 100 million compute-units.
But with the upcoming Alpenglow upgrade, some developers say that cap is no longer necessary. And if that cap is lifted, blocks would be able to fit as many transaction they can, depending on how high performing their validators are.
Supporters say this flexibility could make Solana more resilient during periods of high demand, such as when new tokens launch or DeFi activity spikes. Bigger blocks would mean more transactions can get through, reducing the kinds of congestion and failed trades that frustrate users.
Still, some debated that blocks today on Solana aren’t full so there would be no tangible difference for end users. “We haven’t had any time where demand would spike median fees or average fees significantly. So it’s not even clear that burst capacity would be meaningful,” wrote Anatoly Yakovenko, the founder of the Solana blockchain, on the developer proposal forum.
The proposal is still in the discussion stage, and the Solana community will need to decide if the benefits outweigh the risks. If approved, it could mark a new chapter in Solana’s scaling story.
