Solana (SOL), which has quickly emerged as one of the largest blockchain or distributed ledger tech (DLT) networks, was recently impacted by instability during a highly volatile week for cryptocurrencies (which saw Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other digital asset prices fall sharply).
some recent metrics on the solana TPS. Number of duplicate packets is too damn high! (and take way to long to check and after sigverify)
huge thanks to @buffalu__ on finding this issue.
pre fix: pic.twitter.com/fQ5PA1Eefi— toly 🇺🇸 (@aeyakovenko) January 21, 2022
The issue experienced by Solana blockchain platform validators that use their computing power to help verify the network was reportedly caused by a large number of duplicate transfers. This, according to an update posted on the official Solana website on January 22, 2022.
Blockchain engineers have launched version 1.8.14, which will reportedly “attempt to mitigate the worst effects of this issue,” the update confirmed. It also mentioned that additional enhancements are scheduled to be released in the coming weeks, and many of the new features are being thoroughly tested at the moment.
The notice stated that the Solana mainnet beta is currently “experiencing high levels of network congestion.” And the last 24 hours have “shown these systems need to be improved to meet the demands of users, and support the more complex transactions now common on the network.”
Solana’s (SOL) network status page listed all its systems were fully operational as of Monday (January 24, 2022).
As first reported by Bloomberg, a tweet via an unverified account that was also retweeted by Anatoly Yakovenko, Co-founder at Solana Labs, said that the network’s issues were due to “current market volatility,” without actually providing extensive details on the issue.
Notably, this is not the first time that the Solana network has experienced some sort of instability. In September of last year, the platform suffered a 17-hour outage due to “resource exhaustion.”
As covered, Ethereum alternatives like Avalanche, Solana, and Binance Smart Chain (BSC) offer performance benefits. However, Amber Group reports that these DLT platforms do tend to sacrifice a certain degree of decentralization.
Recently, the Cambrian explosion of apps deployed on Ethereum, including decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols and NFT projects, has “reintroduced the urgency of finding a scaling solution,” the team at Amber Group wrote in a blog post.
They added that alternative layer one protocols, like Solana, Avalanche, and Binance Smart Chain, have gained users and developers “seeking lower transaction fees, faster finality time, and/or higher transaction throughput.”
However, to accommodate those feats, alternative layer ones “sacrifice a degree of decentralization.” Furthermore, if their growth trajectory persists, these blockchains will “eventually reach their throughput limits as well,” Amber Group explained.
For example, the Avalanche network recently “implemented an upgrade (Apricot 5) to lower fees once its network started seeing higher transaction activity — a short-term fix to what will be a long-term problem.”