- Solana blockchain experienced a major outage on Tuesday morning, causing SOL token price to drop 4% before recovering when network was restored.
- Outage was likely caused by a bug that was patched on testnet but not yet mainnet. Block production halted for 5 hours before validators could restart with software update.
- While concerning, outages are not new for Solana. But its ability to quickly patch issues shows promise despite challenges in balancing decentralized networks.
The Solana blockchain experienced a major outage on Tuesday morning, causing the SOL token price to drop sharply before recovering. This marked the first significant network disruption for Solana in nearly a year.
Outage Strikes Solana Network
The outage struck the Solana mainnet-beta around 5:00am EST, according to the network’s status page. Solana Labs said the network was down for nearly 5 hours before validators could restart with a patched software update. The outage resulted in a halt in block production on Solana for several hours.
SOL Price Plummets Then Rebounds
When the outage hit, the price of SOL plunged from around $96 down to $93 within minutes. This represented a drop of over 4% from its pre-outage price. However, once the network recovered and block production resumed, SOL price rebounded back near its former level at $95.
Likely Bug to Blame
While an official root cause analysis is still pending, developers believe the outage was likely triggered by a bug. The bug was apparently identified and fixed on Solana’s testnet but had not yet been patched on the mainnet before failure struck.
Not Solana’s First Outage
The Solana network also experienced a significant 19-hour outage in June 2022. The Solana Foundation later attributed that incident to excessive transaction loads from decentralized apps overwhelming the network.
Outages Could Threaten Solana’s Growth
For a blockchain aiming to support expansive decentralized finance and app ecosystems, outages present a threat to user confidence and mainstream adoption. However, Solana remains popular given its high transaction speeds and low costs.
Conclusion
The Solana outage demonstrates the challenges of balancing decentralized networks at scale. However, the team’s ability to quickly identify and patch the failure shows promise for Solana’s continued evolution despite bumps along the way.
