Solana core developers have published a new improvement document, SIMD‑0286, that would increase the network’s per‑block compute limit from 60 million to 100 million compute units, a 66% boost designed to give more throughput for DeFi and builders.
The document appears on the Solana Foundation’s GitHub page, where it is open for feedback by node operators.
Block limits set how much computational work validators can handle in each 400‑millisecond block. Raising the ceiling lets heavy programs, such as order‑book decentralized exchanges and MEV auctioneers, run without hitting “compute budget exceeded” errors.
These limits help prevent too many heavy programs from overwhelming the network or causing slowdowns. At the same time, higher limits make validators carry a heavier load.
Previous rollout raised block limit to process 1700 transactions per second
The network last raised its block limit on July 23 with the rollout of SIMD‑0256, which pushed capacity to 60 million compute units and helped Solana process about 1,700 transactions per second during daytime traffic. But demand for additional capacity has grown as restaking protocols, non‑fungible token mints, and DePIN projects have crowded available block space.
The new SIMD‑0286 proposal is under discussion and testing now. If approved, it would go live in an upcoming software release and activate automatically at a future epoch, once validators upgrade and agree to the higher limit.
In a separate move, the Solana team has unveiled a long‑term plan to make the blockchain the foundational layer for global internet capital markets, or ICMs, by 2027.
The term ICM, coined by former Solana Foundation core member Akshay, refers to a “globally accessible ledger where entities, currencies, and cultures are tokenized,” allowing “anyone with an internet connection access to capital markets.”
The roadmap, shared on Thursday, notes that increasing bandwidth and reducing latency (IBRL) are “absolutely necessary — but not sufficient to achieve this.” It adds that the third pillar must tackle the details of market microstructures.
Until now, it was not clear how market microstructure for ICM should differ from traditional finance. Builders have since rallied around a shared vision called Application‑Controlled Execution, or ACE, which aims to give smart contracts “millisecond‑level control over their own transaction ordering.” The authors describe market microstructure as “the single most important problem in Solana today.”
To support this vision, the roadmap outlines multiple architecture changes for a flexible market microstructure on the mainnet. In the next three months, Solana plans to launch Jito’s Block Assembly Marketplace (BAM) testnet, which will offer new tools for validators and traders to boost performance and create value. Jito Labs, the team behind BAM, has built several high‑performance tools on Solana and will guide the testnet phase.
Looking further ahead, the plan calls for a peer‑to‑peer fiber network named DoubleZero to replace the public internet for Solana transactions. DoubleZero is already running in testnet with more than 100 validators and roughly 3% of mainnet stake. It is slated for full launch by mid‑September. If it works as planned, DoubleZero could reduce network delays and speed up transaction finality for users worldwide.
