- A patch restores Solana network service.
- VanEck blamed incompetence and foul play for the outage.
- Solana devs have yet to report the cause.
Solana’s reliability woes reemerged with a vengeance on February 6, with the network grounding to a halt. The outage renewed criticisms around Solana’s suitability to support real-time finance and mission-critical apps. As the outage post-mortem unfolds, Matthew Sigel, a researcher from VanEck, highlighted several critical points that hint at both incompetence and potential foul play.
Solana Bug Exploited?
According to Sigel, the outage was caused by a bug in an upgrade to the protocol’s Berkley Packet Filter (BPF) mechanism, an “intrusion detection analysis” process used by Solana to facilitate upgrades and execute programs.
Sigel claimed that the bug was discovered during testnet trials, and a fix was made. However, the BPF upgrade was pushed to mainnet without implementing the bug fix, indicating a major oversight on the devs’ part, if true. Adding fuel to the fire, Sigel mentioned that there is speculation that the bug was deliberately triggered to crash the network intentionally.
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While suspicions swirl over sabotage, Solana has remained quiet on the outage’s root cause, instead focusing their efforts on patching the problem and investigating what triggered the outage.
Report to Follow
Solana confirmed that the network went offline at around 10:00 UTC on February 6. However, the deployed v1.17.20 software upgrade successfully restarted block production around 15:00 UTC the same day, equating to an approximate five-hour long downtime.
Engineers are currently monitoring the network’s status, while developers are working on a “root cause report” to explain the outage. Once completed, this report will be made publicly available. Solana did not give a specific timeframe for the report’s expected release.
On the Flipside
- With regulatory scrutiny on crypto networks increasing, major outages could spur calls for stricter oversight.
- Sigel did not expand further on the sabotage point, such as covering suspects and their motives.
- Helius Labs CEO “mert” mentioned internal friction being Solana’s biggest hurdle to long-term success, not rival blockchains.
Why This Matters
The recent Solana outage has brought attention to the nascent state of blockchain infrastructure, highlighting vulnerabilities within blockchain technology that undermine user confidence. This situation prompts comparisons with legacy systems, typically regarded as robust and dependable.
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Find out about Polkadot outshining Solana and Polygon in NFTs minted here:
Polkadot NFT Mint Breaks Records, Surpasses Solana, Polygon
Read more about the criticisms leveled at Solana following its recent outage here:
Solana Outage Reignites Criticisms Over Network Reliability
