Solana urges validators to test early version 'Firedancer' upgrade

PANews reported on January 9 that according to CoinDesk, Solana is stepping up testing of Firedancer. This software upgrade is expected to significantly increase the processing speed of the blockchain. According to messages in the Solana Technology Discord server, the Solana core development team hopes to have the “vast majority” of processing power in the on-chain low-risk test network running Frankendancer (an early version of Firedancer) by the end of the week. The call to action for Solana validators marks Firedancer’s biggest test yet. This upgrade has been in the works since the chain experienced frequent outages in 2022, and is seen as enhancing Solana’s stability and speed.

Backers of Firedancer believe the software, developed by the crypto arm of trading giant Jump, will give Solana an unparalleled advantage in the race to attract global financial markets to blockchain. They point to its theoretical speed: one million transactions per second, orders of magnitude faster than any blockchain-based system today. Firedancer itself doesn't have a release date yet. Currently, Jump Crypto has only launched Frankendancer, which is a combination of Firedancer and Solana’s mainstream client architecture. Before this week, only a small number of validators had adopted Frankendancer, and many said they found it to be buggy and prone to crashes.

On Tuesday, the Solana Foundation used this subsidy reward and punishment mechanism for the first time to directly promote the adoption of Frankendancer. Validators have only a few days to switch their testnet systems to the new client or lose their delegated rights.