For the failed 'Ethereum killer', technical problems leading to a network shutdown are already a tradition. Approximately every quarter, users encounter an inability to complete transactions. The network was down for 19 hours this time, the biggest shutdown in 12 months.

The failure occurred on 25 February after an attempt to upgrade to version 1.14. The chain has branched out, and the transaction processing speed has dropped from 5,000 TPS to 100 TPS. The validators decided to roll back to v.1.13 but miscalculated the restart point, making the problem even worse. As a result, the network was completely shut down, and a rollback to an older unit was carried out.

Chorus One, a network partner, tried to find a positive side to the story, highlighting Solana's decentralisation and the need for validators to vote with a set quorum on each decision. Because of this factor, it takes 8-10 hours for Solana instead of 1 for a highly centralised network to get back up and running.

Another user noted that it wasn't about decentralisation but rather inherently poor design: "Solana has proved for the 15th time that nodes are highly dependent on each other."

Operation was fully restored on 26 February, but the cause of the failure is still unknown. The development team is now investigating, assuring that none of the confirmed user transactions was affected by the failure. It also had no effect on the coin's value.

Users and some developers have already come to terms with this network feature: occasional failures. However, Solana has a skeleton in the closet in the form of 35 million SOL (~$800 million) still held by FTX. At the end of the trial, the coins will be sold to cover the investors' losses. The surge in supply won't help capitalisation, and the very fact of a close business relationship with the collapsed crypto exchange has already led to the departure of two of Solana's biggest NFT projects.

StormGain Analytical Group
(platform for trading, exchanging and storing cryptocurrency)