Solana blockchain network suffers prolonged slowdown

Developers who operate and maintain the Solana blockchain restarted the crypto network after a technical problem triggered an hours-long slowdown over the weekend.

It is the latest in a series of outages, technical issues, and processing problems that has plagued Solana since its debut in 2020.

Last October, the blockchain underwent a similar restart process after a glitch caused a prolonged outage.

An official Twitter account associated with the blockchain cited an issue during a software upgrade as prompting the need for the restart.

The outage was resolved at around 9 p.m. New York time and the Solana community was able to restart the network.

A coordinated restart is underway to address an issue during the upgrade from 1.13 to 1.14 that caused block finalisation to slow significantly.

Validators: please follow instructions below https://t.co/L7b3kAFOJS

— Solana Status (@SolanaStatus) February 25, 2023

The problems encountered during the upgrade sent the blockchain into what’s called a “vote-only” mode, according to Austin Federa, head of strategy and communications at Solana Foundation, the nonprofit that helps support the blockchain.

While that usually allows for a swift resolution of any problems, this time the blockchain was not able to recover. That meant the network had to undertake a full restart, he said.

The “vote-only” failsafe means that most of the transactions on the blockchain were essentially halted, according to a tweet by Richard Patel, a software developer at Firedancer, a Jump Crypto-backed project focusing on improving Solana’s performance.

Solana has been championed by its supporters as an “Ethereum killer” because it offers lower transaction costs and faster processing speeds.

The blockchain supports different types of crypto applications including lending, trading and nonfungible tokens.

Among its most stalwart champions was Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder and former Chief Executive Officer of the bankrupt FTX exchange.

After Bankman-Fried’s arrest and the collapse of FTX and its sister firm Alameda Research, those close ties hurt the perception of Solana as a network and sent the price of its native SOL token to record lows.

The Solana Foundation disclosed that it had around $1 million in cash or cash equivalents deposited with FTX prior to its bankruptcy filing.

Solana’s founders told Bloomberg News last December that they have been doing everything they can to break any connections with Bankman-Fried, FTX, or Alameda.

The price of SOL was hovering just below $22 as of mid-afternoon in New York, compared with near-record lows of around $10 in January.