Solana urges validators to test early 'Firedancer' upgrade

Author: Danny Nelson, CoinDesk; Compiler: Tao Zhu, Golden Finance

Solana is ramping up testing of Firedancer, a highly anticipated software upgrade that promises to dramatically increase blockchain processing speeds.

By the end of the week, Solana 's core developers expect the "vast majority" of processing power on the chain's low-risk test network to be running through Frankendancer, an early version of Firedancer, according to information in the Solana Technology Discord server.

The call for Solana validators — people who run the computers that power the network — marks Firedancer's biggest test yet. The upgrade has been in the works since 2022, when the chain experienced frequent outages, and is seen as an improvement to Solana's stability and speed.

Backers of Firedancer believe the software, developed by the cryptocurrency arm of trading giant Jump, will give Solana an unparalleled advantage in the race for cryptocurrencies to lure global financial markets to the blockchain. They point to its theoretical speed: 1 million transactions per second , orders of magnitude faster than any blockchain-based system today.

Firedancer itself doesn't yet have a release date. Currently, Jump Crypto has only launched Frankendancer, which is a hybrid that combines elements of Firedancer and Solana's primary client architecture. Before this week, only a small group of validators had adopted Frankendancer; many told CoinDesk they found it buggy and prone to crashes.

“It’s notoriously difficult to keep this thing alive and running, but we do it,” said Kollen House, a long-time member of Solana’s validator community. He sees the new push for wider adoption of Frankendancer as a sign of the software 's "maturity."

"If you have the confidence to say, 'Hey, we want 60% of the testnet to be running this client,' then we're almost there," House said.

Crypto networks like Solana are powered by hundreds of individual validators. Each validator independently runs a computer with "client" software that connects them to the network. This decentralization helps the blockchain remain secure, but makes system upgrades more difficult to coordinate.

For years, the Solana Foundation, the nonprofit organization that manages the network, has solved this coordination problem in part through subsidies. Its “delegation program” helps smaller validators (those who don’t stake as much SOL and therefore earn less for their work validating the chain) remain profitable. It often coaxes validators to keep their software updated by threatening to revoke their delegated stakes for those who fail to upgrade in a timely manner.

On Tuesday, the Solana Foundation used this "carrot and stick" policy of subsidies for the first time to directly drive Frankendancer adoption. Validators only have a few days to switch their testnet systems to the new client or lose their delegated stake.

“Right now, they seem to be getting there,” said validator operator Jon, who said he has been running Frankendancer for a few months. “Currently, approximately 30% of validators on the testnet are running Frankendancer, but they still believe they have not yet reached a supermajority.”