Solana draft would retire durable nonces, with no activation before May 2027

A 5 November draft proposes removing Solana's durable nonces, which allow signed transactions to remain usable beyond the normal expiry window. It is still an open proposal; custodians using delayed signing would need a replacement.

SIMD-0723, submitted by Anza's Gabe R., would require every transaction to carry a recent blockhash after activation. It would disable the instructions that initialise, advance and upgrade nonce accounts, while retaining withdrawal and authority-change instructions. The proposal cites repeated security and consensus problems caused by maintaining special lifetime and failure rules.

Offline signing is a legitimate use case. Exchanges and custodians may take longer to approve a transaction than the usual recent-blockhash window allows. The draft points to program-based alternatives that check an offline authorisation inside an ordinary transaction. This moves the responsibility for signature checking, replay prevention and revocation into those programs; it does not make those responsibilities disappear.

The draft says activation cannot occur before 5 May 2027. The Solana Foundation's separate migration guidance expects roughly six months after a replacement is ready and currently sets no final date. These are planning constraints, not a confirmed switch-off appointment. The pull request remains open and describes itself as a draft.

One important warning in the proposal is that a failed attempt using a replacement program can leave the underlying authorisation usable. A failed submission therefore must not be treated as cancellation. The immediate implication is preparation for affected signing systems, rather than a newly activated change that ordinary users need to work around tonight.