This is a weekly newsletter on the latest Solana engineering news this week. If you want to stay updated on Solana tech every week, follow Solana Changelog at @solana_devs and @readylayerone and turn on notifications.
Releases
Notable feature gates
Testnet - Remove inactive stakes from stake delegation calculations
New versions
- Solana Go (Foundation) v2.3.0, v1.26.0
- Token-2022 Program JS SDK v0.20.1
- Anchor v0.32.3, v0.31.3, v0.30.4
- LiteSVM v0.18.2
- Mollusk v0.17.1-agave-4.5.0-alpha.4, v0.17.1, v0.17.0
Ecosystem work
SIMDs
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A discussion has started about aligning on a Solana specification and potential changes to the SIMD process
- WTM - The draft specification documents the details that define the Solana protocol. A shared specification would make it easier to identify and reason about how proposed changes affect the protocol.
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A proposal would add vector intrinsics and additional vector registers to the Solana virtual machine instruction set architecture (ISA)
- WTM - An ISA defines the operations available to bytecode when a program runs. The current ISA processes vector elements one at a time. The proposed instructions would support arithmetic, loading, and storage across multiple vector elements at once, enabling faster onchain math and additional runtime and program use cases.
Validator clients (Agave, Firedancer, Mithril)
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Agave will add a typed ABI to its program runtime implementation
- WTM - The runtime previously managed alignment when invoking Solana instructions without a strongly typed representation. The new implementation defines the parsed instruction data and handlers for its components, making instruction payloads easier to reason about.
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Agave expanded its worker pool implementation to support lattice hashing of account state
- WTM - The custom Agave worker pool is replacing Rayon thread pools across the repository. Extending it to lattice hashing brings its performance improvements to another part of the validator stack.
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Firedancer reimplemented its leader handover procedure
- WTM - Work at epoch boundaries and during leader handoffs can add latency. If the handoff takes too long, the new leader may skip its first slot. This change reduces that risk by improving handover performance.
RPC 2.0
- Cloudbreak is improving result queries for
getAccountInfoandgetMultipleAccounts- WTM - RPC providers need to meter operations accurately because query costs vary with the work required. This change makes both methods less expensive to query.
Solana language clients (Web3.js, Solana Kit, Kit plugins, Solana SDK, Codama, Solana Go)
- Web3.js will use Rolldown as its JavaScript bundler
- WTM - Bundling affects production builds and hot module reloading during development. In project benchmarks, Rolldown reduced bundle time from two seconds to nearly zero.
Solana Program Library (SPL) and Core BPF
- Work continues on the programmatic signer program’s migration infrastructure, including new
migrate scanandmigrate token-accountCLI commands- WTM - These commands help developers migrate program operations from System Account-based control to programmatic signer control.
Solana program frameworks (Anchor, Pinocchio, Steel, Quasar)
- Anchor is reimplementing its instruction handling
- WTM - Instruction handling previously required many heap allocations. Directly borrowing instruction data reduces allocation overhead when Anchor programs process instructions.
Testing frameworks (Mollusk, LiteSVM, Surfpool)
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Surfpool is improving startup times for its TUI
- WTM - Faster startup reduces wait time for developers and coding agents running repeated test loops.
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Surfpool added several performance improvements
- WTM - The changes include WebSocket improvements and faster transaction sending, reducing latency in local development workflows.
Other interesting things
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@Helius released its parsed events scan API
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A Linux kernel bug affected several validator operators this week
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@ludo_txtx introduced Sonata, a tool for viewing leader handoffs between Solana validators
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A DNS issue affected several Solana apps this week
Developer Events
- Solana Hacker House London - November 1-12, 2026
- Scale or Die - November 14, 2026
- Solana Breakpoint - November 15-17, 2026
Open Developer Roles
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Helius is hiring a Head of Security