How Solana validators prevented another network outage

Solana averted a potential outage this week thanks to its developers’ swift actions. On August 8, Solana validator Laine detailed on social media platform X how the network’s core developers worked together for two days to prevent disruption.

According to the firm, Solana validators waited until 70% of the stake had patched the vulnerability before publicly disclosing the incident. Laine explained that the fix was kept confidential to prevent an attacker from exploiting the vulnerability and halting the network before the upgrade could be completed.

How Solana developers cooperated to fix the vulnerabilities

Laine stated that the Solana Foundation coordinated with key network participants, including Jito, Anza, and Jump/Firedancer, on Wednesday to prepare for the essential upgrade. The update was implemented on Thursday, August 8, at 14:00 UTC.

Laine noted that reaching out to Solana core participants was relatively easy as teams usually engaged one another before now. It stated :

“The amazing thing about Solana’s validator community is that it’s very active and engaged, and even if you don’t directly know a validator they’re often only one degree of separation away as we’ve all made friends with others over the year.”

Meanwhile, the rapid response underscores the developers’ commitment to maintaining the network’s stability. Since 2023, Solana has experienced only two outages, with the most recent in February 2024. This marks a significant improvement from 2022, when the network faced 14 outages , including eight days of downtime in January alone.

Solana thrives amidst new-found stability

Over the past year, Solana has emerged as one of the fastest-growing crypto ecosystems, gaining significant adoption from traditional financial institutions like PayPal . These firms utilize Solana’s technology for its cost-effectiveness and high-speed transactions, which makes it a viable alternative to other smart contract-enabled networks like Ethereum.

The network’s decentralized exchange (DEX) activity has surged, with Solana’s total monthly DEX volume surpassing Ethereum’s for the first time last month, reaching over $56 billion, according to DeFillama data . Analysts attribute this increase to heightened memecoin and stablecoin trading on the network, leading to a revenue boost with over $25 million in fees generated in the past week.

Amidst this growth, Solana’s native SOL token has become one of the best-performing assets in the current bull market. Its value recently hit an all-time high of 0.06211 against ETH, while the US dollar value of the token has surged by 536% over the past year, reaching approximately $155 as of press time.