Solana Developers Consider Bold Move to Boost Validator Profits

In a bid to enhance the efficiency of Solana blocks, Tao Zhu, an engineer at Anza, has introduced a proposal for a crucial change in the Solana protocol.

Outlined in SIMD 0172, this change targets the “compute budget” program, which is intended to curb computational waste but is deemed by Zhu as a hindrance to optimal blockspace utilization.

While many agree that adjustments are necessary for the compute budget, some developers feel that Zhu’s proposal doesn’t go far enough. The compute budget limits transactions to a default of 200,000 compute units (CUs) to prevent excessive data accumulation. Zhu argues this limit is often overestimated, leading to unnecessary reserved space in blocks.

He proposes gradually reducing the default to zero over approximately 20 days, requiring users to specify their actual compute needs. This change could lead to more transactions fitting into each block, thereby increasing fees for validators, who have faced challenges recently.

However, the proposal has its critics. Even if the default is set to zero, transactions would still need to include compute budget instructions, which take up valuable data space. Some developers advocate for moving this information to the transaction header to free up more bytes for essential instructions.

Zhu has suggested that the compute budget program could eventually be eliminated, but for now, he focuses on this interim fix, despite concerns that it may complicate the development process.