The number of network outages on the Solana blockchain continues to increase the count and this has been a huge setback for the popular smart contract platform and its native token SOL. A network outage is said to occur when transactions and other operations cannot be processed or executed by users of a particular blockchain network. That is, during a network outage, users cannot send or receive tokens using the crypto network.
Therefore, network outages are a huge setback for the Solana blockchain. It is worth noting that Solana which prides itself as the fastest blockchain has recorded about 8 network outages ever since its launch in 2020. Most of the causes of these outages are caused by spam activities, code bug presence, congestion on the blockchain network or when validators are unable to process transaction loads at peak periods.
Solana Network Halts in October 2022
Another network outage was announced by the team on October 1 although it did not last for a long time when compared to previous scenarios. This halt lasted for less than an hour according to the time the outage was first announced by the Solana team and the time Mainnet Beta Validators were given the cluster restart instructions. "The Solana network is experiencing an outage and not processing transactions. Developers across the ecosystem are working on diagnosing the issue and to restart the network. More information will be provided as it becomes available," the team first wrote on Twitter. Having diagnosed the problem, the team shared an update that contained the guide for network validators to make the SOL network active again.
Solana's longest network outage occurred in September 2021 when the network became inactive for users for around 17 hours before the development team could bring the network back online. This particular outage was triggered by a denial-of-service attack caused by bots spamming the Raydium protocol. In May 2022, a seven-hour outage was also reported on the Solana blockchain. Again, bots on a non-fungible token application caused it. Whereas, the June 2022 network halting was a result of a code bug that ceased block production on the Solana network.
Solana C0-Founder Speaks on Causes of Network Outages
Speaking of the incessant outages in an interview with Raoul Pal, Anatoly Yakovenko, the co-founder of Solana noted that network outages have been Solana's curse citing that the outages are not entirely a bad thing as it shows that the blockchain has users. He added that this major problem of Solana is a result of the network's low-cost transactions.
Anatoly Yakovenko highlighted that these outages does not compromise the Solana network but only prevents users from using the network to execute transactions. While many have openly criticized the big challenge seen on Solana, Yakovenko pointed out every blockchain is built differently having their unique "failure case".
On the whole, Solana has seen at least eight full or partial outages in the last 13 months. Of course, this has become a huge concern for investors as it has caused some to lose faith in the project and its native token, SOL though it was built uniquely with myriad use cases and capacity. SOL which had its peak price of $260 in November is trading for $33, at the time of writing.
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