Solana's SIMD-0500 Will Block Immutability for Programs Built on Old Bytecode
A forthcoming Solana network change, SIMD-0500, will prevent developers from making older programs immutable if their bytecode is not updated to the current v3 format. The rule, already present in validators as of September 2026 but not yet active on mainnet, causes the SetAuthority instruction to fail for programs running on SBPF versions v0, v1, or v2. This affects a wide range of projects from 2023–2024, including token launches, NFT collections, and small DeFi protocols, that intended to renounce upgrade authority but have not yet done so. To freeze such a program after the gate activates, developers must first rebuild it with a current toolchain, deploy the upgrade, and only then revoke authority — a three-transaction process rather than a single step. A separate but related change under SIMD-0431 also sets a minimum extension size of 10,240 bytes when growing a program-data account via ExtendProgram.
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