Solana price dips as outage requires a network restart
A halt of the Solana blockchain prompted the release of a software patch
Solana’s Anatoly Yakovenko | Montinique Monroe for Blockworks
The Solana mainnet, which is still technically referred to as “mainnet-beta” halted at approximately 5:30 am ET, effectively pausing all activity on the chain.
The major outage required a network restart. Engineers responded with a validator software patch about an hour after the incident, to allow validators to upgrade to version 1.17.20 and coordinate on getting the chain moving once again.
Most of Solana’s validators were using either version 1.17.16 or 1.17.18 according to node data provider solanabeach.io.
A network restart — a process which can take hours — completed shortly before 10:00 am ET, as soon as validators with more than 80% of the SOL staked, collectively, become active post-upgrade.
Now, work begins on restarting dapps on the network and assessing the downstream effects.
The price of solana (SOL) fell by about 3% to $93.39 as news of the outage spread, but has recovered 2% since, to trade at $95.14 as of 10:30 am ET.
Solana had remained in continuous operation for almost a year, previously suffering major outages in February 2023, June 2022, and September 2021.
Last updated on Feb. 6 at 10:35 am ET with additional context.
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