Overview
- The network activated the 250ms slot target on mainnet on Friday, September 18, 2026, speeding block production by about 17 percent compared with the prior 300ms setting.
- Developers lowered per-slot limits in proportion so the change does not raise total transaction capacity; an example change set the maximum compute units per slot toward 37.5 million from a 60 million baseline.
- Leader control windows were compressed to a one-second span for a validator’s four-slot run, which shortens the time a single validator can produce blocks and raises sensitivity to missed slots.
- The final planned step to 200ms has no mainnet date and will only proceed if block-skip and other stability metrics remain within acceptable bounds after this staged rollout.
- Shorter slots also compress epoch length to about 30 hours, speed staking and validator rotations, and give oracles and market-making dApps fresher state while changing node ingestion and storage patterns.