The Solana blockchain is preparing for a significant enhancement in scalability, aiming to increase its block capacity from 60 million to 100 million Compute Units (CUs) through the SIMD-0286 update, initially introduced in May.
This 66% capacity boost follows the network’s recent success in elevating its block limit to 60 million CUs during epoch 822, highlighting a determined effort to enhance throughput and alleviate congestion.
SIMD-0286
The announcement was first made by SolanaFloor, which noted that the network’s block capacity is set to expand from 60 million to 100 million CUs. The report suggested that the implementation could happen “today,” citing information from Solana research and development company Anza.
If approved, SIMD-0286 would continue a series of gradual improvements, building on prior updates such as SIMD-0207 to 50 million CUs and SIMD-0256 to 60 million, to keep Solana competitive against Ethereum rollups and other scaling technologies.
On-chain data reveals that SIMD-0256, which increased the capacity to 60 million CUs, was activated at Slot 355,104,000 during Epoch 822. Brennan Watt, Anza’s Vice President of Core Engineering, later expressed on platform X that the 60M CU was just a “warm-up,” stating, “100M already merged. I love it here.”
When questioned by Squads Labs protocol engineer Orion about which version SIMD-0286 would be included in, Watt replied, “3.0 if implemented today.”
Compute Units are similar to Ethereum’s gas, measuring the computational resources required for transactions and smart contract executions. Since May 2025, when Solana developers introduced SIMD-0286 on GitHub, the community has engaged in discussions about performance versus stability considerations.
While some validators see the potential for substantial throughput improvements, allowing Solana to support over 2,000 TPS on the mainnet, others warn that larger blocks require thorough testing to prevent replay attacks or slowdowns like those experienced during the September 2021 outage.
Higher CU thresholds could facilitate new decentralized finance (DeFi) and Web3 gaming applications, potentially decrease failed transactions during high demand periods, and enable Solana to accommodate institutional investments from entities like DeFi Development Corp and SOL Strategies.
Market Impact
As developers and validators deliberate on GitHub, Solana’s native SOL token has seen a market dip after briefly surpassing the $200 mark on July 22, its peak since June 6, before profit-taking ensued.
Currently, the token trades at $183.05, a decline of 9.1% in the last 24 hours. However, over the past week, SOL has increased by 6.6%, outperforming Bitcoin’s modest 2% rise, although it remains 37.7% below its all-time high of $293.31 from January 19.
Additionally, monthly and quarterly data indicate gains of 25.8% and 16.4%, respectively, suggesting persistent bullish momentum despite recent fluctuations.
This article was originally published on CryptoPotato.
