With the upgrade of the Alpenglow protocol on @solana, reducing transaction confirmation time to an astonishing 100-150 milliseconds, this marks a new stage in the competition between the two giants of public chains, Solana and Ethereum: it is no longer just a race in technical metrics, but a true test of business models and application implementation.

Solana's challenge: Having achieved millisecond-level confirmation speed, Solana faces an ecological landing challenge similar to that once faced by Ethereum. When your engine is already faster than the demands of the track, what should come next?

Solana needs to prove to the market what truly revolutionary applications can be brought by millisecond-level confirmations, aside from MEME. Currently, most DeFi and NFT applications are running well in sub-second confirmation environments, making it difficult to fully utilize Solana's technical strengths. It needs to innovate categories of applications that can only be realized with millisecond-level confirmations; otherwise, its technological advantage will be greatly underestimated.

Ethereum's challenge: With the Layer2 ecosystem taking shape and performance bottlenecks gradually alleviated, Ethereum needs to more strongly demonstrate the actual value of its decentralization and security advantages in terms of institutional adoption. How much is the consensus on decentralization and security really worth?

Ethereum needs to prove that its security and decentralization are not just technical concepts, but core competitive advantages that can translate into real commercial value. Especially in the fields of stablecoins, DeFi, and RWA (real-world assets), Ethereum needs to accelerate the integration of traditional financial institutions.

A symbiotic and prosperous outcome is that the two will no longer fight to the death, but instead will have functional division of labor: Solana is likely to become the preferred platform for 'performance-intensive' applications, while Ethereum consolidates its position as the 'value storage layer.' For the entire industry, this competition will drive blockchain technology towards a more diverse and mature future.