Solana cut its target slot time from 300 milliseconds to 250 milliseconds earlier Friday, blockchain data shows, making the network’s clock run nearly 17% faster without producing an equivalent increase in total transaction capacity.

A slot is the short window in which a designated validator can add a block. At 250 milliseconds, Solana will target four slots each second, up from about 3.3, giving wallets, exchanges and trading applications a more current view of the network.

Validators, or entities that supply computing power to maintain any blockchain network, will remain leaders for four consecutive slots. The faster clock therefore reduces each leader’s control window from 1.2 seconds to one second, handing transaction-ordering power to the next validator sooner.

That matters for applications such as oracle-powered markets and automated market makers, where stale prices or a few hundred milliseconds of uncertainty can affect whether a transaction executes as intended.

Users should see transaction updates sooner, while swaps have a smaller window in which the market can move before they reach the network. That can mean fewer failed trades and less chance of receiving a materially different price than expected.

Such an attack would not endanger mainnet funds. Any potential attack would only target “Sepolia,” where test ether has no meaningful cost, but could leave blocks without transaction payloads and derail the infrastructure testing needed before Glamsterdam reaches Ethereum itself.

What is Glamsterdam?

Glamsterdam is Ethereum’s next major upgrade, designed to fit more activity into each block without overwhelming the computers that verify it. Together with changes to gas pricing, the upgrade is intended to support a block gas limit of about 200 million, creating room for more payments and trades before users begin bidding fees higher.

The upgrade moves the relationship between validators and specialized block builders into Ethereum’s protocol. Builders assemble transaction blocks and compete to supply them. Once a validator accepts the winning bid, the builder is expected to reveal the underlying transactions.

And that process becomes easy to abuse on a free test network. A malicious operator can submit bids far above every legitimate builder, win repeatedly and then withhold the promised payload.

Developers said existing safeguards typically fall back to locally built blocks only after several payloads go missing.

Potuz added that clients also need to identify and reject individual builders so an attacker cannot return under a new identity and continue winning.

“Corporate treasuries were a big buyer through 2025, and they have stepped back,” Glassnode said. “Their average entry, the Corporate Treasury Cost Basis, sits at $80.5K, about 6% above spot, so the group as a whole is under water.”

Bitcoin topped that level recently but failed to keep gains.

Data source Bitcoin Treasuries now puts public-company holdings at about 1.22 million BTC across 181 listed firms. Strategy remains the dominant buyer and holder, with about 845,050 BTC. Tokyo-listed Metaplanet is among the next-largest corporate stacks. As a group, those treasuries are still underwater at current prices.

“A reclaim of $80.5K would put the treasuries back in profit and remove one layer of overhead supply; until then their entry is one more ceiling,” Glassnode added.

Other demand indicators paint a mixed picture

U.S.-listed spot bitcoin ETFs have attracted billions of dollars since early August, signaling a rebound in institutional demand for the cryptocurrency. However, they remain roughly $1 billion short of turning positive on a year-to-date basis, according to data source SoSoValue.

The Coinbase premium indicator has remained mostly negative since May, aside from a brief move into positive territory on Sept. 5, according to data from CoinGlass. A negative reading means bitcoin is trading at a discount on Coinbase relative to prices on offshore exchange Binance, suggesting that U.S. buyers are showing weaker demand than traders elsewhere.

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