New Data Shows Solana’s Compute Limit Increase Is Being Put to Work

Key Takeaways:

• Solana’s higher compute limit is already being used, with many blocks exceeding the old cap.

• The upgrade has eased network congestion during peak activity.

• While network capacity has improved, SOL’s price remains range-bound.

 

An upgrade going live is one milestone. Watching real transaction data actually fill the extra room it created is a different one — and that’s exactly what happened over Solana’s first few days running on its expanded block capacity.

Cointelegraph reported on August 1, 2026 that following Solana’s increase of the per-block compute limit from 60M to 100M CUs, roughly 10-23% of blocks now exceed the previous 60M CU cap each hour.

What the Before-and-After Data Actually Shows

The upgrade, delivered through SIMD-0286, activated at the start of Epoch 1009 on July 29, 2026, authored by Lucas Bruder of Jito Labs. Data from Pine Analytics comparing block-size distribution before and after the switch shows the shift clearly: blocks crowding the old cap fell from 12.5% to just 0.5%, while blocks now exceeding that former 60M ceiling sit at 14.6%. Notably, the median block size barely moved, still centered around 33M CU below the new limit — meaning typical network activity hasn’t changed, but the traffic that used to bump against the ceiling now has somewhere to go instead of competing for scarce space.

Why This Upgrade Existed in the First Place

The increase wasn’t speculative. Between the prior compute increase’s activation in July 2025 and this latest jump, 11.2% of all blocks produced used 56M CUs or more, indicating the network was frequently brushing against its former limit during high-demand periods — typically the exact moments when traders most needed their transactions to land. 

The upgrade required more than 70% of mainnet stake to have XDP, a kernel-bypass networking mode, enabled beforehand to ensure validators could propagate the larger blocks fast enough without slowing the network’s 400ms block times.

The Chart Doesn’t Show the Same Momentum Yet

Looking at the seven-day chart, SOL climbed from around $74 on July 26 to a peak near $77 on July 27, before a sharp drop pulled price down to the $73 range by July 28. A choppy recovery attempt pushed SOL back toward $75 by July 31, but that gain has since faded, with price settling at $72.87 as of August 1. The pattern shows a market that hasn’t yet connected this capacity data to price — the network is demonstrably handling more throughput, while the token itself remains range-bound.

What Comes Next for Solana’s Scaling Roadmap

Solana’s own team has described this compute increase as just the first step in a broader scaling push, with Alpenglow and 200-millisecond slot times cited as the next upgrades in the pipeline. For now, the early data suggests the network capacity increase is functioning as designed — absorbing real transaction spikes rather than sitting unused. Whether that translates into renewed demand for blockspace, and eventually into price, is the next thing worth tracking as more usage data accumulates in the weeks ahead.