Solana (SOL) validators concluded the governance process for Alpenglow (SIMD-0326) on Sept. 2, positioning SOL for a potential run to $250.

The community vote tallied 98.27% in favor, 1.05% opposed, and 0.69% abstaining, with 52% of the total stake participating in the decision.

Alpenglow represents a complete overhaul of Solana’s consensus architecture, replacing the existing Proof-of-History and TowerBFT mechanisms with a modern protocol designed for performance and resilience.

Reducing transaction finality

The upgrade introduces Votor, a direct-vote-based system that finalizes blocks through single or dual-round voting processes depending on network conditions.

The protocol transformation promises to slash transaction finality from TowerBFT’s current 12.8 seconds to as low as 100-150 milliseconds.

The network achieves bandwidth efficiency gains by eliminating heavy gossip traffic that currently burdens the system.

Alpenglow’s architecture centers on direct validator communication using cryptographic aggregates to prove consensus.

Validators exchange votes directly rather than through the network’s gossip protocol, reducing computational overhead and communication costs.

Technical implementation and market impact

Alpenglow operates on a “20+20” resilience model, maintaining network liveness even when 20% of validators act maliciously and another 20% remain unresponsive.

The protocol divides time into slots with predetermined leaders responsible for consecutive periods called leader windows.

Shawn Young of MEXC Research noted the upgrade could position Solana faster than standard web search response times, potentially driving developer and institutional adoption.

Young projected that SOL could reach $215 by the end of September and $250 by the end of the fourth quarter, citing technical improvements alongside growing institutional treasury holdings that exceed $1.7 billion.

The governance process spanned epochs 833-842, including discussion periods, stakeholder weight collection, and token distribution through the adapted Jito Merkle Distributor tool.

Implementation details and timeline for network deployment remain under development as validators prepare for the consensus transition.

Economic restructuring and validator incentives

The upgrade fundamentally changes Solana’s economic model by moving voting off-chain. Validators will no longer submit vote transactions for each slot, eliminating bandwidth overhead and transaction fees.

Instead, the protocol introduces the Validator Admission Ticket (VAT), requiring validators to pay 1.6 SOL per epoch as an upfront cost to maintain economic barriers to participation.

Leaders receive compensation for aggregating and submitting vote data, earning rewards equal to the total value of all votes included in their aggregates.

Additional bonuses apply for processing fast-finalization or finalization certificates, recognizing the higher computational costs associated with these services.

This improvement positions Solana’s performance closer to Web2 application response times while maintaining blockchain security guarantees.

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Solana’s token SOL has pushed to levels not seen since February, lifted by renewed community confidence in a major network proposal.

Data from CryptoSlate shows SOL briefly rose above $215 this week, gaining more than 6% in the last 24 hours before easing slightly to $214 as of press time. This rally placed the token back at its strongest point since early February, when it last traded near $216.

According to analytics firm Santiment, retail sentiment has turned sharply positive, with investors making nearly six bullish comments for every bearish one. Notably, this is the highest ratio recorded in over two months.

Meanwhile, this price momentum has come despite slowing activity on Solana’s decentralized exchanges.

A Dune Analytics dashboard shows that the network’s daily active traders have dropped by more than 80% from January’s memecoin-driven peak of 5 million. For four straight days, user numbers have remained below the one million mark.

This decline reflects a clear pivot among retail investors on the network towards other blockchains like Ethereum.

Alpenglow update

The latest price momentum coincides with early community support for SIMD-0326 Alpenglow, a proposal described as one of the most significant consensus upgrades in Solana’s history.

The proposal seeks to simplify the network’s architecture by removing legacy components such as Proof of History, Tower BFT, and gossip-based vote propagation.

If implemented, the upgrade would reduce block finalization times to about 150 milliseconds, placing Solana in line with other high-speed platforms designed for trading applications.

Notably, Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko has publicly encouraged the community to support the proposal, describing it as a key step forward.

Unsurprisingly, early voting data indicate strong backing for the change, with 11.6% of Solana stakers endorsing Alpenglow, while only 0.1% have opposed it. Around 100 validators have already cast votes.

The community’s response suggests growing confidence that the network can deliver faster and more reliable performance at scale, even as retail trading activity undergoes a reset from its memecoin-driven highs.

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Bitcoin is the leading cryptocurrency, which introduced the world to the magic of decentralized cash. The primary strengths of Bitcoin are decentralization and its robust security infrastructure. Everything seems right about Bitcoin until you notice the limitations that it has shown as a result of growing adoption. The two biggest limitations of Bitcoin blockchain holding it back include privacy and scalability.

The introduction of Taproot upgrade improves Bitcoin privacy and also addresses the scalability concerns. Bitcoin introduced the Taproot upgrade in 2021 and it has helped in achieving significant improvements by making Bitcoin transactions more flexible, private, and efficient. Let us learn more about the Taproot upgrade and its implications for the future of Bitcoin.

Advance your career with in-demand Bitcoin expertise—enroll in the Certified Bitcoin Professional (CBP) Certification today.

Reasons to Introduce the Taproot Upgrade

Before learning about the Taproot upgrade, you must know about the reasons that called for the upgrade. The original design of Bitcoin created a revolutionary impact by showcasing a decentralized electronic cash system. On the other hand, some of the characteristics of Bitcoin required improvement, which became clearly visible as Bitcoin gained more users. The following factors can help you understand the rationale behind introducing the Taproot upgrade on the Bitcoin blockchain. 

• Reduced Transaction Privacy 

One of the most noticeable benefits of Bitcoin transactions is the assurance of anonymity as they are linked to pseudonymous identities. However, analyzing the transactions can reveal patterns that can harm user privacy. Complex transactions like multi-signature transactions and the ones involving smart contracts leave a discernible audit trail on the Bitcoin blockchain. Anyone can differentiate simple payments from more complex agreements, thereby creating risks for user privacy. For example, anyone can identify a multi-signature transaction by checking the number of parties involved in a transaction. 

The arrival of the Bitcoin Taproot BIP upgrade also aims to address the smart contract limitations on Bitcoin blockchain. Bitcoin scripting provides the flexibility to incorporate simple smart contracts on the Bitcoin blockchain. Complex smart contracts on Bitcoin will require verbose scripts that take up significant block space and reduced privacy. The Taproot upgrade aimed to facilitate the creation of sophisticated dApps directly on the Bitcoin blockchain without sacrificing its core traits.

Another notable objective behind introducing the Bitcoin Taproot upgrade revolves around addressing the threat of scalability challenges. The blockchain size limit and transaction processing speed of Bitcoin have always been considered as its limitations. No one would have thought that these issues would ultimately lead to scalability challenges in the long run. With more users adopting Bitcoin and complex transactions, the Bitcoin blockchain experiences network congestion, thereby resulting in higher transaction fees. The scalability issues affect the overall user experience as the transaction fees can be extremely high for smaller transactions.

Enroll now in the Blockchain Scalability and Interoperability Mastery Course to learn the skills needed to develop faster, scalable, robust, and interoperable dApps.

Design of the Taproot Upgrade

The challenges responsible for introducing the Taproot upgrade on Bitcoin don’t qualify as critical flaws. On the contrary, the challenges showed potential areas where Bitcoin can improve to meet the growing requirements of its users. The answers to “What is the Taproot upgrade for Bitcoin?” reveal that the Bitcoin network devised the upgrade to enhance the network without disrupting the fundamental architecture or introducing new risks.

While many people assume that Taproot is a single feature, it represents a combination of three different BIP or Bitcoin Improvement Proposals. The three components work in unison to achieve promising improvement in smart contract functionality, privacy and scalability. The following components of the Taproot upgrade showcase why it plays a pivotal role in addressing the privacy and scalability challenges.

The core component of the Taproot upgrade, Schnorr Signatures, is a BIP 340 improvement proposal that makes transaction verification more efficient. Prior to Taproot, Bitcoin relied on the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm to verify transactions. Irrespective of the security benefits of ECDSA, you can notice the following enhancements with Schnorr Signatures.  

• Improvement in Transaction Privacy

Schnorr Signatures make complex and multi-signature transactions completely indistinguishable from simple transactions that require single signatures, thereby improving transaction privacy. External observers cannot identify complex transactions or the number of parties involved in transactions due to Schnorr Signatures. The effect of the BIP 340 improvement in Taproot ensures that all Bitcoins are fungible and cannot be distinguished from other Bitcoins. 

The advantages of Taproot also draw attention to the facility of signature aggregation with Schnorr Signatures. It is a feature that can make a Taproot Bitcoin wallet more private by allowing the combination of multiple signatures from different parties into one compact signature. Let us think of a scenario where you need multiple people to sign a Bitcoin transaction from a shared wallet. Schnorr Signatures ensures that the three signatures are combined into one signature, thereby enhancing privacy.

• Batch Verification and Efficient Transactions

Another significant benefit of Schnorr Signatures in the Taproot upgrade is batch verification. Nodes can verify multiple Schnorr signatures, thereby reducing computational burden on nodes, which results in network efficiency and better scalability. On top of it, a single Schnorr Signature takes less block space than multiple ECDSA signatures. Therefore, complex transactions would involve lower transaction fees, which translate into scalability improvements.

• Merkelized Abstract Syntax Tree or MAST

The Merkelized Abstract Syntax Tree or MAST is another core component of the Taproot upgrade. As the name implies, it draws inspiration from Merkle Trees and serves the benefit of introducing private Bitcoin smart contracts. MAST helps in achieving the following benefits for the Bitcoin blockchain.

• Privacy for Complex Transactions

MAST serves a major role in ensuring that the Taproot upgrade improves privacy for complex transactions. It reveals only the path followed in a smart contract rather than all the execution paths, thereby boosting privacy. Third parties or external observers have to struggle to know the complete scope of multi-party agreements and various backups. 

The approach to reveal only the necessary details in MAST ensures significant reduction in the amount of data required for complex transactions. You can see how the Taproot upgrade improves scalability by making transaction size smaller. Reduced transaction size ensures that you can fit more transactions in a block, thereby reducing network congestion and improving overall efficiency of Bitcoin.

• Non-disclosure of Unused Spending Conditions 

The MAST component of the Taproot upgrade also addresses the problem of multiple spending conditions in some smart contracts. With the arrival of MAST, Bitcoin will ensure more privacy by revealing only the condition met before execution. The other conditions which remain unexecuted will stay hidden in a Merkle tree structure.

• Enhancing Bitcoin Script with Taproot

The third and most crucial component of the Taproot upgrade, Tapscript, serves an updated scripting language for the Bitcoin blockchain. Tapscript works along with Schnorr Signatures and MAST to offer the following advantages.

Tapscript might seem like a technical nightmare for some users. On the other hand, it ensures simplification of various aspects of Bitcoin scripting. Developers can rely on Tapscript for writing complex smart contracts and transaction logic, thereby enabling more secure and efficient smart contract deployments.

• Preparing Bitcoin for the Future

Tapscript is a Bitcoin Taproot BIP upgrade which contains a set of rules for Bitcoin scripting. Tapscript helps the Bitcoin network in understanding and processing transactions that utilize MAST and Schnorr Signatures. It provides clear guidelines for interaction between the new upgrade components and existing Bitcoin scripting capabilities. Tapscript also prepares Bitcoin for the future by providing a flexible framework to implement upgrades to Bitcoin scripting language in future.

Enroll now in the Bitcoin Technology Course to learn about Bitcoin mining and the information contained in transactions and blocks.

Real Impact of the Taproot Upgrade

The real impact of the Taproot upgrade is yet to be seen as it has not achieved full-scale adoption. However, you can notice that many Bitcoin wallets have been integrating Taproot addresses. The transition of more users to Taproot addresses will spread the word about the privacy and efficiency benefits of the upgrade. 

While the Taproot Bitcoin wallet adoption is still growing, users have pointed out promising improvements in user experience on the Lightning Network. The Lightning Network has become better with integration of Taproot-compatible features that will ensure more efficient and private off-chain transactions.

The most profound impact of the Taproot upgrade on Bitcoin is visible in the rise of new protocols and use cases on the Bitcoin blockchain. If you had said the same thing about Bitcoin 10 years ago, no one would have believed you. With the Taproot upgrade rolling out gradually, the Bitcoin blockchain enabled support for BRC-20 tokens and Bitcoin Ordinals. The innovative developments with Taproot upgrade ensure that Bitcoin will serve as the foundation for new types of applications and digital assets. 

Final Thoughts 

The Taproot upgrade is one of the notable milestones in the evolutionary journey of Bitcoin. A review of answers to “What is the Taproot upgrade for Bitcoin?” reveals that the Taproot upgrade includes three core components. Schnorr Signatures, MAST and Tapscript work in unison to ensure that Bitcoin grows beyond the identity of being only a cryptocurrency. Taproot has reduced transaction size and fees, thereby opening new avenues for improving scalability. On top of it, the Taproot upgrade ensures that external observers can only view relevant details of Bitcoin transactions. Furthermore, Tapscript governs the use of Schnorr Signatures and MAST while establishing the foundation for new use cases and protocols on Bitcoin. If you want to dive deeper into these innovations, consider earning a Bitcoin Certification to strengthen your expertise

*Disclaimer: The article should not be taken as, and is not intended to provide any investment advice. Claims made in this article do not constitute investment advice and should not be taken as such. 101 Blockchains shall not be responsible for any loss sustained by any person who relies on this article. Do your own research!

Author

Simon Chandler

Author

Simon Chandler

About Author

Simon Chandler is a Brighton-based writer and journalist with over ten years of experience writing about crypto, technology, politics and culture. He has written for Cryptonews.com since late 2017,…

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July 23, 2025

The Dogecoin price has dipped in the past 24 hours, falling to $0.2591 as the crypto market struggles to maintain recent momentum today.

Even with this drop, DOGE remains up by a healthy 29% in a week and by 69% in a month, with the meme token also boasting a 90% gain in the past year.

And the positivity doesn’t stop there, because a recent upgrade proposal – specifying zero-knowledge proofs for the Dogecoin blockchain – could help to boost the token even further over the longer term, making it more useful as a network.

This new feature, which would enhance Dogecoin’s speed and scalability, could drive more users to the token, something which points to a very bullish long-term Dogecoin price prediction.

Dogecoin Price Prediction: Major Upgrade Proposal Could Change Everything for DOGE – $1 Just the Beginning?

Put forward by the team behind the MyDoge wallet, the proposal would upgrade Dogecoin Core such that it could verify off-chain zero-knowledge proofs.

In other words, it would make the Dogecoin blockchain compatible with zk-rollups, giving the Dogecoin ecosystem access to layer-twos that could make it faster and cheaper.

If accepted, this upgrade could prove massive for Dogecoin, providing it with greater privacy and greater scalability.

In turn, it could pave the way for the development of a whole ecosystem of DOGE-based apps, giving Dogecoin the utility it has mostly lacked up until now.

There’s still no confirmation that validators will accept the proposal, but given the community’s positive reception to the potential update, it could be only a matter of time.

And if it does get the green light, it will no doubt have a hugely positive impact on the Dogecoin price, which is correcting a little today after recent gains.

As we can see from its one-week chart, it remains near the beginning of an upswing, having recently broken through of a descending channel.

Its relative strength index (yellow) is hovering around the 60 mark, and has yet to reach an overbought position.

Meanwhile, its MACD (orange, blue) is about to turn positive for the first time in several months, meaning that more gains should be on the way.

And if we do receive confirmation that Dogecoin’s validators will accept MyDoge’s proposal, then the Dogecoin price could easily reach new highs for the year.

It’s currently on track to hit $0.3 by the end of August, while it could end the year at around $0.5.

Such gains could be higher if the wider market extends its recent gains, with US stock markets continuing to hit new highs in recent days and weeks.

AI Content Creation Platform SUBBD Raises $850,000 in Token Presale: Next 100x Alt?

For traders looking to diversify beyond major tokens such as Dogecoin, there are many promising newer coins in the market right now, including a handful of presale tokens.

One of the most interesting of these is Subbd (SUBBD), an ERC-20 token that has now raised just over $850,000 in its ICO.

What’s bullish about SUBBD is that it will be the native token for the Subbd platform, which is an AI-powered adult content creation site that puts more control in the hands of creators.

Its harnessing of artificial intelligence means that creators can create AI-powered influencers and performers at the click of only a few buttons, while the use of crypto means that payment will be fair and transparent.

One of the most encouraging things about SUBBD is that its native platform has already launched, with the website boasting that its influencers/performers have a combined following of over 250 million.

This means that SUBBD is launching into an already healthy ecosystem, giving it a head start over many other new tokens.

Investors can join its presale by going to the Subbd website and connecting a compatible crypto wallet.

SUBBD is currently available for $0.055975, although this price will rise again later today.

A group of experienced Bitcoin developers has outlined a new proposal to prepare the network for the inevitable threat of quantum computing.

The initiative, led by Jameson Lopp, Christian Papathanasiou, Ian Smith, Steve Vaile, and Pierre-Luc Dallaire-Demers, focuses on safeguarding vulnerable Bitcoin held in older address types that may be compromised by future quantum breakthroughs.

25% of Bitcoin faces quantum computing risk

The proposal noted that around 25% of all Bitcoin eventually could be at risk if a cryptographically capable quantum computer emerges.

According to the developers, these assets are held in addresses that have already exposed their public keys, making them potential targets for these sophisticated computing machines.

Due to this, the developers stressed that this is not a hypothetical issue for the distant future but a serious risk that requires proactive mitigation.

They warned that a successful quantum attack wouldn’t just impact market value; it could severely undermine trust in the network’s ability to function securely. They stressed:

“An attack on Bitcoin may not be economically motivated – an attacker may be politically or maliciously motivated and may attempt to destroy value and trust in Bitcoin rather than extract value. There is no way to know in advance how, when, or why an attack may occur. A defensive position must be taken well in advance of any attack.”

Three-phase strategy for a quantum-safe transition

To prepare for this threat, the team has laid out a three-phase plan to gradually migrate users from quantum-vulnerable addresses to post-quantum secure alternatives.

The first phase would allow Bitcoin to be sent only to new address types called P2QRH, thereby nudging the network toward quantum resilience. This transition is expected to begin three years after the implementation of BIP-360.

The second phase would invalidate all spends from legacy cryptographic signatures, effectively freezing unupdated addresses after a predetermined block height. According to the developers, this could be roughly five years after phase one begins.

The third and final phase would provide a method for users who missed the migration window to recover their legacy funds using zero-knowledge proofs tied to their seed phrases. However, this step is still under research and would be optional.

Community reaction

Jacob Youngman, a Bitcoin commentator, expressed concern that the changes might lead to the confiscation of inactive or legacy-held coins, possibly including those linked to Satoshi Nakamoto.

According to him:

“The best we can do would be to give users an opt-in solution that protects them from quantum computers.”

However, Lopp addressed the criticism, stating that inactive wallets are just as likely to be exploited by malicious quantum actors if no action is taken.

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The Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 and Watch 8 Classic arrive on July 25, and Samsung has its trademark trade-in deals with enhanced credit to tempt long-time fans into upgrading. But should you upgrade to the Galaxy Watch 8, or should you hold off for the Galaxy Watch 9?

As the person who reviewed the Galaxy Watch 6 and 6 Classic, owns the Galaxy Watch 7, reviewed the first-gen Galaxy Watch Ultra, and is currently testing the Galaxy Watch 8 Classic, I feel more than qualified to answer the question!

I’ll talk about the polarizing Ultra-fication of the Watch 8 lineup, something my colleague Andrew discussed in his Galaxy Watch 8 hands-on. But whatever your tastes, upgraded specs and new Samsung Health features should matter just as much as design.

Here’s the gist, if you’re in a hurry: Galaxy Watch 7 owners have only one tentative reason to upgrade, but with a Galaxy Watch 6 (Classic) or older, you should be seriously tempted.

The Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 isn’t as different as it looks

If you compare the Galaxy Watch 8 vs. 7, it’s immediately apparent how similar they are. They share the 3nm Exynos W1000 chip, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, dual-band GPS, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity standards, and the latest BioActive Sensor suite with extra HR LEDs.

If you’re switching from the Watch 6 to the Watch 8, however, you do get a faster, more battery-efficient processor, dual-band GPS, more accurate health sensors with more data, faster charging, and doubled storage. Slightly more tempting, right?

Samsung slightly switched up its display sizes with the Watch 8: It measures 1.34 and 1.47 inches instead of 1.3 and 1.5, with a 326 pixels-per-inch ratio that’s right in the usual ballpark. I doubt most people will notice that the display is different from previous years, aside from the extra brightness.

The Galaxy Watch 8 is 1.1mm skinnier than the Watch 7, or 2mm thinner than the Watch 8 Classic. So even if it looks thick in photos, it’s the opposite because Samsung redesigned its internals to shrink things down.

The photos above and below show what the Galaxy Watch 8 looks like in person. Active-style Galaxy Watches have cases that hug the display edge so it feels like one seamless package; now, the bezelless display looks more isolated and elevated, and the squircle aluminum case stands out more.

Personally, I’ve always found Galaxy Watches to be comfortable and functional, but fairly boring and far from a “normal” watch look. So I don’t mind the Galaxy Watch 8 design experiment, because it switches things up after years of monotonous repetition.

Both the Watch 8 and 7 look artificial; the newer model just leans into this a bit more. Samsung superfans might dislike it, but since this squircle redesign is probably here to stay, you may want to try it out and see if you like it in person.

My colleague Andrew prefers the Watch 8 Classic look more and doesn’t mind heavier watches, but he admitted that the Watch 8 is light enough to “forget” you’re wearing it. With the default band attached, the Watch 8 40mm and 44mm will only weigh about 52–56g, very reasonable and comfortable for a smartwatch.

No other smartwatch looks like the Galaxy Watch 8 Classic (except the Ultra)

Galaxy Watch 6 Classic owners may feel conflicted about the Watch 8 Classic look, because the Ultra chic runs directly counter to the idea of a “classic” smartwatch design. But if you’re strictly buying for the rotating bezel paired with two generations of upgrades, the Watch 8 Classic fits the bill nicely.

Where the Watch 8 display looks naked above the square-ish case, the Watch 8 Classic fills that gap with the zero-to-sixty scale border and the rotating bezel. From your top-down perspective wearing it, the Watch 8 Classic looks stylish and doesn’t seem “unnatural.”

To others, however, its flat sides may look bulky, calling attention to the fact that it’s a smartwatch.

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You may be rightly concerned that the extra steel casing makes the Watch 8 Classic overly heavy. In practice, both my Watch 8 Classic 46mm and Watch 6 Classic 47mm weigh 86g or 3oz. And the newer model is 0.3mm thinner, though you can barely tell the difference in person.

The bulk does have an impact, because Samsung gave its Watch 8 Classic a smaller 1.34-inch display; there’s no 1.5-inch option this time because (presumably) it would be way too heavy. You’ll have to accept that visual downgrade, though you get an extra 1,000 nits of brightness, the Quick Button, 64GB of storage, and the other Watch 8 upgrades as consolation.

It’s clear that Samsung made the Classic a more affordable spin-off of the Ultra, without the benefit of an extra day of battery life. It’s too heavy for casual smartwatch fans, but those willing to wear a heavier watch might want the Ultra, or a cheaper, long-lasting option like the OnePlus Watch 3.

Ultimately, long-time Classic fans will have to accept these changes for the rotating bezel, which feels just as seamless and natural to use as it did with the Watch 6 Classic.

Your Watch 8 upgrade decision will come down to Samsung Health

The Galaxy Watch 8 launches with Wear OS 6 running One UI 8 Watch, with major new health metrics: carotene levels for your Antioxidant Index, heart health with Vascular Load, personalized training plans with Running Coach, and circadian rhythm for Bedtime Guidance.

I assumed that because the Watch 8 and 7 share the same health sensor suite, the Watch 7 would track all of this data once it got the update in a few months. I shouldn’t have assumed!

Samsung’s blog post footnotes warn that Vascular Load and Antioxidant Index will be “only available with the Galaxy Watch Ultra or later released Galaxy Watch series,” even though the Ultra (2024) and Watch 7 came out the same year with the same sensors. Oddly, the Running Coach is locked to the Watch 7 and up.

Samsung knew Ultra customers would expect to get every feature, but must have decided that tantalizing Galaxy Watch 7 customers with feature FOMO was fair game. It feels a bit cynical to lock features on a device that’s just a year old to push people to upgrade.

As for older Galaxy Watch owners, these features (and the AGEs Index introduced last year) require the latest BioSensor to work, so you’d have to upgrade regardless.

So, are these tools useful enough to justify an upgrade? To me, it depends on whether these features are accurate enough to live up to Samsung’s hype, and that’s something I’ll be testing and posting about on Android Central over the next couple of weeks. Hopefully, I can make your decision easier before the 25th.

Should you upgrade to the Galaxy Watch 8 or Watch 8 Classic?

If you have a Galaxy Watch 4 or 4 Classic, I applaud you for your patience, but since they’re about to run out of software support, you really should upgrade while Samsung is giving extra trade-in value for them.

Galaxy Watch 5 models have thick-bordered, dim displays and are two generations behind on Exynos chips with less RAM. It’s not totally outdated yet, but I’d take the $150 in trade-in credit from Samsung to swap.

Watch 5 Pro or Watch 6 Classic owners can get $250 in trade-in credit for a Watch 8 Classic or Watch Ultra (2025), which makes the purchase slightly less painful.

If you have a Galaxy Watch 6 or (especially) 7, you can hold out on upgrading to the Watch 8 if you’re hoping this design is a one-and-done. I’m skeptical, but it’ll depend on whether this generation fails to turn around Samsung’s declining smartwatch sales.

The XRP Ledger (XRPL) has launched version 2.5.0 of its software, bringing several improvements to the network.

This marks a major step for XRPL, which is working to compete more directly with blockchain platforms like Ethereum and Solana.

Updates and Bug Fixes

One of the release’s most notable features is support for batch transactions. This allows multiple requests to be grouped and processed together as a single unit, improving efficiency and enabling complex multistep operations.

Another key update adds escrow support for RLUSD and other crypto assets on XRPL. Escrows can now interact with trustline-based tokens as well as multi-purpose ones. This enables automated and secure payouts, which can be useful for setting up vesting schedules and managing deposits within applications.

Version 2.5.0 also introduces permissioned decentralized exchange (DEX) controls and permission delegation. The former gives developers control over who can participate in exchanges, helping projects meet regulatory requirements. The latter allows users to provide specific access rights to another wallet, offering more account management and automation flexibility.

Furthermore, the update brings several bug fixes affecting RPC responses for tem codes and NFT interactions with trustlines. Vet, a popular XRPL validator, said these changes will make its software run faster, more efficiently, and more stably.

New Features and Improvements

The XRPL software update has also brought new features and enhancements to improve performance, reliability, and developer experience. The network can now handle more transactions simultaneously, and the relay logic has improved.

XRPL Commons has also been added as a trusted bootstrap cluster, which supports better network connectivity. In addition, the upgrade fixes an issue related to conflicting signing methods by improving how the system handles transactions from accounts using multiple signers.

Other changes include better memory usage, reduced duplicate network traffic, faster build times, clearer documentation, and updated developer tools. Build instructions have also been improved for systems using Ubuntu 22.04 and above.

Leading up to the update, daily XRPL addresses soared seven times, jumping from around 40,000 to nearly 295,000. Meanwhile, whale wallets also set a new record by hitting an all-time high of 2,708, the largest number in the network’s 12-year history.

This growth comes as other blockchains like Solana face declining metrics, including a $2.5 billion capital outflow and a 90% drop in DEX volume since its January peak of $36 billion. The platform is also facing reduced meme coin activity due to competitors like BNB Chain. Ethereum has also been affected by scalability issues, leading to congestion and high gas fees during peak periods. Following the upgrade, XRP has gained nearly 6% and is trading at $2.20.

The post Critical Ripple Upgrade Hitting the XRP Ledger: What You Need to Know appeared first on CryptoPotato.