Solana is a blockchain platform that started in 2019 and it is associated with the cryptocurrency SOL. As of 2022, SOL is estimated to currently have a market cap of 28 billion showing a lot of promise. There are even experts claiming that SOL is better than ETH and even claiming that it is the ETH killer. 

Solana’s 2 Day Network Outage

Solana has been experiencing multiple problems over the last few months and they were able to pull through despite the issues. However, a recent problem has occurred causing trouble for its DeFi users and traders. 

The platform just recently experienced a network outage cutting all connections from their user base. But unlike the previous problems this one lasted for nearly 48 hours or 2 days of downtime. 

Solana’s team noticed a problem on January 21, 2022, and stated that their mainnet-beta cluster was experiencing some issues regarding their performance and that the team was doing their best to investigate the cause of the problem. 

Apparently, the investigation lasted for more than a day before they were able to identify the main issue.  The team noted in their report that the issue is due to “excessive duplicate transactions” which were all done by bots that flooded the platform. 

A day later, the problem was solved after the latest update of the platform. The investigation team stated, they are planning to roll out some improvements within the next 12 weeks. They are rigorously testing out these new features that will help improve their network stability. 

Solana Users Experience Heavy Liquidations

The event caused a lot of drama on social media platforms as many Solana haters jeered at blockchains’ issues mocking it. Some were very condescending and even taunted Solana by sarcastically calling it the “Ethereum Killer”.

But the drama didn’t stop there! Even though the problem has been solved, a lot of the platform’s user base and SOL traders experienced heavy liquidations during the 2-day outage of the Solana platform.  The reason for the liquidation is due to the price dip that the crypto market experienced during the network outage. Because users couldn’t access Solalna they weren’t able to do anything but see their assets go in the red. 

Multiple Solana users were angry and outraged at the poor timing of the outage and vented out their frustrations on social media. People with different opinions are venting out their frustrations during Solana’s darkest hour. 

Users complained that this has happened multiple times this month already and 48 hours was the last straw. A lot of angry users have stated that they have lost faith in the platform and they would gladly pick another one once Solana helps them get back what they lost.

Other users are more of the insightful side giving their thoughts and opinions on the attack, a good example of this would be the tech investor Daniel Cheung who stated that what happened with Solana makes him question the viability of monolithic structures. He further emphasizes that modular architecture is the future of blockchain.

Solend and other Solana platforms are doing their best to address the issue and are finding a way to reconcile this loss. And although they are trying their best, to resolve the issue and calm down their angry userbase, the damage has already been done and they’re going to need to do a lot of reparations both inside the platform and with their damaged reputation as well. 

Conclusion

This is terrible news for anyone who owns SOL and for anyone relying on crypto platforms to handle their digital assets. The algorithms of blockchains make it hard to attack but the platforms themselves are vulnerable and they can suffer from issues just like they did with Solana’s Network outage. And considering that this has happened to Solana multiple times over the past few months, their team needs to step up their game and prevent this from ever happening again.

* We hope this information will help you in your investment process, but this is not investment advice. Every investment carries risk, especially in this industry, so DYOR before making a decision.