The Solana blockchain network experienced a major outage on February 7th, with transaction processing reaching a standstill for nearly five hours. At approximately 9:52 AM UTC, the network stopped producing new blocks, halting all services reliant on transaction confirmation.
Engineers identified the root cause as a bug in the software managing network upgrades. After deploying a patched Solana software update, the network restarted at 2:47 PM UTC, allowing transactions and services to resume. The outage marked the first major disruption to Solana’s network since February 2022.
In a statement, the Solana Foundation promised a full investigation and report into the incident. While concerning the temporary outage highlighted the network’s ability to coordinate and implement swift fixes to restore functionality.
The blockchain’s native SOL token dipped 4% during the downtime but showed signs of swift recovery once operations resumed. Despite interruptions, Solana demonstrates resilience while supporting various decentralized finance and application protocols.
As Solana recovers from its first outage in 350 days, developers remain confident regarding the network’s capacity to meet reliability challenges. Stakeholders view the event as an opportunity to bolster safeguards and prevent future incidents.