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350ms Slot Cut Begins
Solana has cut its blockchain slot time to 350 milliseconds for the first time since genesis as it works toward a 200-millisecond target aimed at reducing network latency.
“Solana reduced its slot time to 350 milliseconds, marking the first such reduction since the inception of the network”
Solana Foundation vice president of technology Jacob Creech said, "We’re in a new era of 350ms. Next stop, 300ms," in a Friday X post.
The change is described as the first step under SIMD-0525, which plans further reductions to 300ms, 250ms, and eventually 200ms, with all four stages targeted for mainnet activation in Agave v4.2.
At press time, average slot times on Solana stood at 360ms, down from the network’s original 400ms target, according to the Solana slot time explorer.
The rollout is also framed as staged and tentative, with the schedule for all four stages targeted for Agave v4.2 but described as tentative in the reporting.
Fees Fall as Roadmap Advances
Alongside the 350ms engineering shift, network fees are reported to have fallen in Q2 2026 to about $50 million, with CryptoRank citing a 44% quarter-over-quarter drop.
CryptoRank also ties the fee decline to a broader activity shift, noting that the $50 million figure was roughly 6% of the ~$900 million peak seen across Q4 2024 and Q1 2025.
In the same coverage, CryptoRank says South Korea’s Shinhan Asset Management is piloting a KRW-denominated tokenized fund on Solana with the Solana Foundation, Etherfuse and Orca aimed at institutional investors.
CryptoRank frames the speed upgrade as a technical milestone while the fee picture creates a mixed outlook for SOL price and the DeFi ecosystem revenue.
OneSafe adds that Solana is slashing its slot time from 400 milliseconds to 350 milliseconds under SIMD-0525, and says the adjustment "promises a significant boost in operational efficiency" while it also notes transaction fees dropping from $90 million to $50 million in the second quarter of 2026.
Institutional Tokenization and Risks
The roadmap is also linked to institutional finance in South Korea, where Shinhan Asset Management is developing a KRW-denominated tokenized fund modeled after BlackRock’s BUIDL, with the Solana Foundation, Etherfuse and Orca involved.
“South Korea’s Shinhan Asset Management is piloting a KRW-denominated tokenized fund on Solana”
CryptoRank says the planned pilot is aimed at institutional investors and could cover fund issuance, distribution, compliance, blockchain infrastructure, and onchain liquidity.
OneSafe similarly describes partnerships with Shinhan Asset Management and says the launch of a KRW-denominated tokenized fund illustrates Solana’s ambition to expand its services beyond trading.
At the same time, multiple reports emphasize that the slot-time changes are staged and that the activation schedule remains tentative, including targeting all four stages for mainnet activation in Agave v4.2.
Crypto news coverage also frames the 350ms step as the first feature gate under SIMD-0525, while noting that "the activation schedule remains tentative and can change depending on testing" for the later stages.