What happened?
Jump Crypto’s Firedancer team introduced proposal SIMD-0370 to remove Solana’s fixed compute unit block limit and let validator performance determine how many transactions a block can contain. The change builds on the Alpenglow upgrade that lets validators skip blocks they can’t process to cut congestion and avoid wasted gossiping. If approved, blocks would be sized by hardware and performance, creating a flywheel where faster validators pack more txns and push overall network throughput higher.
Who does this affect?
Validators and node operators are the most directly affected because slower validators may need to skip blocks or upgrade hardware to avoid losing rewards. Builders, dApps, traders and trading-bot providers will also feel the impact as higher throughput and faster finality reduce congestion and create more trading opportunities. Large token holders and institutional players, like Forward Industries (FORD) that already holds a big SOL stake, will be watching closely since the change shifts network capacity and economics.
Why does this matter?
From a market perspective, greater scalable throughput could drive more on-chain activity in DeFi, stablecoins and trading, which would likely increase demand for SOL and put upward pressure on price. Technically, holding the key $200 support matters for price action — staying above could target $230–$255 and possibly $330–$350, while a break below risks $190 and $175 and a bearish shift. That upside potential is balanced by risks like increased centralization or new failure modes, so the market will price both the growth opportunity and the operational risks.