Solana Stumbles: 5-Hour Outage Hits Popular Blockchain (CORRECTED)

Editor's note: This story has been corrected to state the Solana network suffered an outage on Feb. 25, 2023 and to add attribution for this information. 
Solana SOL/USD, the high-speed blockchain known for its recent surge in activity, faced another hiccup on Tuesday with a five-hour outage.

This disruption caused its native token, SOL, to dip from around $96 to below $94.

Although SOL has since recovered somewhat, it remains down 2.5%, underperforming the broader crypto market.
This wasn't Solana's first rodeo. The network suffered an outage on Feb. 25, 2023, with the cause being attributed to a "deduplication failure," according to data from Messari.

Tuesday's incident follows a similar pattern and highlights ongoing challenges with the platform's stability.

What Happened To Solana This Time?

According to Solana Status, the official communication channel, the outage began around 9:53 UTC and lasted until 14:57 UTC.

The outage is attributed to a bug in the v1.17.20 update, requiring a network restart and upgrade to resolve. Engineers were able to restore operations relatively quickly and the network is functioning again.

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Validators And Snapshots: Understanding The Jargon

For those unfamiliar with blockchain terminology, here's a quick breakdown of some key terms mentioned:

• Validators: These are the individuals or entities responsible for verifying transactions and maintaining the accuracy of the blockchain. Think of them as the security guards ensuring everything runs smoothly.
• Snapshots: These are essentially backups of the blockchain at specific points in time. Think of them as save points in a video game, allowing the network to potentially revert to a stable state if something goes wrong.

Root Cause, Future Implications

Solana's core developers are investigating the root cause of this outage and will release a report once their analysis is complete.

Understanding what triggered this issue is crucial to prevent similar disruptions in the future.

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