Solana Approves Alpenglow Upgrade for Near-Instant Finality

The Solana community has overwhelmingly approved the Alpenglow upgrade, with 98.27% support, marking the network’s most important technical overhaul to date. More than half of all staked SOL participated in the vote, securing consensus for the SIMD-0326 implementation across validators.

Alpenglow introduces Votor and Rotor, replacing Proof-of-History and TowerBFT to cut transaction finality from over 12 seconds to 150 milliseconds. Rotor will also reduce validator data transfers, boosting performance for DeFi, gaming, and other high-frequency applications.

MEXC analyst Shawn Young said Solana’s speed improvements and $1.7 billion treasury make SOL a strategic infrastructure asset, projecting $215 in September and up to $250 by year-end due to institutional adoption and staking constraints.

Meanwhile, prediction markets on Myriad assign a 64% probability that Solana hits $250 this year, reflecting confidence in its ETF prospects. Analysts note that Solana’s projected finality speed now rivals global internet services, further enhancing its appeal for payments and capital markets infrastructure.

Gavin Newsom Teases Meme Coin Mocking Trump

California Governor Gavin Newsom said he intends to launch a meme coin mocking President Donald Trump’s ventures. Speaking on a podcast, he joked about creating “Trump Corruption Coin” to rival the president’s Solana-based TRUMP token. Newsom argued the project would highlight conflicts of interest and lampoon Trump’s broader embrace of cryptocurrency initiatives.

The president launched his meme coin before inauguration, but its price crashed sharply after an initial rally. Democrats have since criticized Trump’s involvement in crypto projects, questioning financial motives and political entanglements. Newsom continues trolling Trump online, while Trump’s family-backed World Liberty Financial token recently debuted with a $26 billion valuation.

WLFI Proposes Token Buyback Program After Price Drop

World Liberty Financial announced a proposal to redirect protocol-owned liquidity fees toward repurchasing and permanently burning WLFI tokens. According to the team, this initiative would reward long-term holders by reducing circulating supply and strengthening token scarcity. Developers emphasized that all burn transactions would be recorded transparently on-chain and shared publicly with community stakeholders.

The proposal was introduced shortly after WLFI’s market debut, where prices fell more than 30% post-launch. Despite the decline, exchange trading exceeded $2.5 billion and pre-sale investors continued reporting sizeable profits. The Trump family, who co-founded World Liberty Financial, collectively hold nearly 23 billion tokens valued currently around $6 billion.

Starknet Restores Operations After Temporary Network Outage

Ethereum Layer 2 Starknet experienced downtime that halted block production and paused onchain transactions across the network. Developers reported service resumed hours later after implementing a chain reorganization and upgrading affected nodes. Officials said transactions submitted during the outage window may need resubmission to appear onchain correctly.

Starknet batches transactions offchain and posts cryptographic proofs to Ethereum, aiming to lower costs while boosting throughput. The outage lasted more than two hours, with developers promising a retrospective outlining causes and preventive measures. Despite the disruption, uptime remains high compared with peers, with last year’s most serious interruption occurring in April 2024.

Data of the Day

Decentralized exchange Hyperliquid reported its strongest month yet in August, generating $106 million in revenue. Trading volume on the platform reached nearly $400 billion, helping secure its dominant market share among decentralized perpetuals. Data showed Hyperliquid accounted for about 70% of activity, surpassing other DeFi competitors like Jupiter and Orderly.

The growth is attributed to its high-performance blockchain and cheaper transaction fees attracting professional and institutional traders. Hyperliquid also faced scrutiny last month following allegations of whale-driven manipulation in a new futures market. The platform responded by adding safeguards, including stricter price caps and external data integration, to protect market stability.

More Breaking News

• Gemini, founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, filed an S-1 IPO to raise $317 million, seeking $2.22 billion valuation with Goldman Sachs leading.
• Peter Thiel-backed ETHZilla is deploying $100 million in Ethereum into EtherFi’s liquid restaking protocol, aiming for higher treasury yields and security.
• Tokenized equity product XStocks launched on Ethereum with sixty tokenized stocks, including Tesla and Nvidia, expanding beyond Solana, Tron and BNB Chain.
• Michael Saylor's Strategy acquired 4,048 bitcoin for $449.3 million, growing its holdings to 636,505 bitcoin worth approximately $70 billion overall.
• August crypto thefts hit $163 million as hackers targeted high-value users, including a $91 million phishing scam and Btcturk hot wallet breach.
• Ukraine has lost at least $10 billion to crypto crime, with RUSI urging tighter regulation to curb laundering and sanctions evasion risks.
• Andrew Tate lost $67,500 on WLFI but immediately reopened a long position, continuing aggressive bets despite nearly $700,000 in running losses.

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