How DoubleZero’s early production network is performing today and what’s coming with Mainnet-Beta on October 2nd.
What Mainnet-Alpha Is and How It Works
Mainnet-Alpha is DoubleZero’s limited-access production network that began on September 15th. Rather than opening the network all at once, validators have been onboarded in cohorts (a defined number at a time) to stress test the system under real conditions. This staged approach allows DoubleZero to collect detailed telemetry, confirm that all updates since testnet behave as expected, and incorporate validator feedback before the public Mainnet-Beta launch.
The goal of Mainnet-Alpha is to ensure that when Mainnet-Beta goes live on October 2nd, the network delivers the highest performance possible, backed by real-world validator experience rather than only lab testing.
A broad range of independent providers are supplying WAN links and infrastructure to Mainnet-Alpha. This expanding base of contributors ensures geographic diversity, resilience, and the capacity needed for Mainnet-Beta.
Mainnet-Alpha (Epoch 24) Performance
Mainnet-Alpha Performance at a Glance
With 48 high-performance WAN links already active on DoubleZero, Mainnet-Alpha is consistently faster than the public internet. In epoch 24, 77% of links and 82% of city-pair routes outperformed public pathways, proving that a dedicated transport layer can deliver meaningful gains. *Comparisons are based on independent public-internet measurements from RIPE Atlas and Wheresitup, which run probes from cities around the world to record real-time network speeds.
Long-haul corridors such as São Paulo are showing some of the biggest absolute latency drops, while key European and North American routes like Frankfurt–Warsaw and Dallas–Washington also see impressive relative improvements.
At the same time, Mainnet-Alpha data reveals where additional capacity or more direct routing will bring further benefits. Certain Chicago to New York paths and several Singapore inbound connections currently trail public internet, and those corridors are being prioritized for optimization as the network moves toward Mainnet-Beta.Reaching this level of performance before public launch is a significant milestone for the DoubleZero ecosystem and previews the scale and reliability that Mainnet-Beta will deliver on October 2nd.
City-to-City Routing
Mainnet-Alpha Footprint and Performance
With a rapidly expanding footprint that now spans major hubs across North America, Europe, Asia, and South America, Mainnet-Alpha shows how DoubleZero is building a truly global low-latency backbone for Solana validators.Mainnet-Alpha already covers 20 global cities, creating 210 measured city-pair routes. In epoch 24, 172 of those routes (about 82 percent) delivered lower latency than the public internet, underscoring the impact a purpose-built transport layer has on tangible performance improvements.
These improvements aren’t limited to one geography. Mumbai consistently appears in some of the strongest absolute and relative wins, showing how well the network performs on long-distance corridors. Direct links in Europe and North America also show strong results, such as Frankfurt–Warsaw and Dallas–Washington.
From Testnet to Mainnet-Beta
DoubleZero’s testnet, launched in March 2025, providing an environment testing:
- 8 data center locations, 8 WAN links, and a single DZX link (about 10 Gbps each).
- 9 DoubleZero Devices (DZDs) deployed.
- 386+ validators connected (about 16% of Solana mainnet stake).
Over six months, the testnet confirmed smooth validator onboarding, seamless failover to the public internet, consistent performance, and robust telemetry capture and analysis to validate these behaviors. Improvements in vote credits have been observed across the network (read more), including on routes not yet fully optimized.
There have been several fiber cuts and other network issues over this 6 month period and every time, the validators connected to the affected device have automatically failed over to the public internet. A textbook example of IBRL mode failover happened in testnet when an unprotected link from Frankfurt to Prague, provided by Rockaway X, suffered a fiber cut. Validators connected to Prague automatically shifted to the public internet and continued operating without a service interruption. It was a clear demonstration of IBRL mode’s ability to maintain uptime even when a dedicated DoubleZero device or link goes offline.
Mainnet-Beta launches on October 2nd.
- 24+ global locations and 59+ high-performance long-haul links.
- Many routes upgraded to 100 Gbps and more on their way
- Over 57+ DZDs deployed for resiliency and broad coverage.
- Global network footprint includes Amsterdam, Chicago, Dallas, Dublin, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, Marseille, Montreal, Mumbai, Munich, New York, Oslo, Prague, Salt Lake City, San Jose, CA, São Paulo, Seattle, Singapore, Strasbourg, Tokyo, Toronto, Warsaw, Washington DC with Oslo, Salt Lake City, Šiauliai, and Stockholm coming in October 2025.
- Contributors include 11 independent providers: Jump, Rockaway X, Distributed Global Technologies, Latitude, Teraswitch, Galaxy, Cherry Servers, Staking Facilities, South 3rd Ventures, Jito, Cumberland/DRW.
As October 2nd approaches, Mainnet-Beta’s expanded footprint and high-bandwidth corridors, combined with the compounding network effects of more validators joining, create the conditions for even greater performance gains.
IBRL.