Anza, a group of developers dedicated to the Solana blockchain, has created a patch meant to lessen the network’s current congestion. Stake-weighted quality of service, or SWQOS, is a feature of the new Solana version that is currently being tested on the testnet. It gives priority to transactions from validators of greater quality.
In an effort to combat congestion, Solana pushes fixes to the testnet.
The Solana developers are putting a lot of effort into resolving the congestion that previously hindered network performance. Anza, a collective dedicated to Solana, released an updated version of the blockchain software and asked validators to update as soon as possible in order to assess the impact on the network.
Stake-weighted quality of service, or SWQOS, is a new feature added to the Solana testnet v1.18.11 by the developers in response to a congestion issue that was causing seven out of ten transactions to fail at one time. For transactions deemed “good” by other staked validators, SWQOS is a priority method. Eighty percent of the connections connected to validators will be set aside for SWQOS, however other connections will still be handled.
Tim Garcia, the Solana Foundation’s Lead of Validator Relations, clarified:
Whenever there is a lot of traffic on the network, you should be able to give good connections priority. Staked validators are supposed to be encouraged to use the connections to communicate beneficial transactions.
This essentially builds a trusting network amongst Solana actors and increases the likelihood that transactions from other staked validators will be executed. Using trusted decentralized apps will directly benefit users, as this new feature will be implemented by RPC nodes.
Even though traffic has eased, over six out of ten non-voting transactions in Solana are failing as of this writing. Top wallets in the Solana ecosystem, such as Phantom, have nevertheless implemented updates to improve user satisfaction and transaction success rates.
There is still no timeline for approving these improvements because testnet testing is required to determine the effectiveness and side effects of deploying SWQOS.
How do you feel about the new congestion-fighting feature on Anza? Tell us in this section of the comments below.