Solana and backlash
Solana, a blockchain network, experienced severe backlash from the crypto community after it went down for almost 20 hours following a network upgrade. The team behind the blockchain stated that the outage was fixed on the second attempt. The root cause of the outage is still not known. Following the outage, Solana Labs CEO Anatoly Yakovenko stated that the platform plans on improving network upgrades to enhance user experience. In a blog post, Yakovenko said the aim for the core engineers will be to work with validators to improve the process for software release rollouts by bringing in additional external developers and auditors to test and find exploits and continuing to support external core engineers.
The pink shows actual transactions and green is the validators
Fighting the outage
Despite the outage, SOL price remained steady at $22.49 at press time. There are technical reasons indicating a possible reversal of trend, with SOL price breaking above its downtrend line three times since the bear trend began in November 2021 on the weekly chart, a sign that the long-term trend may be reversing. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) on the weekly chart is also showing a bullish convergence with price, indicating underlying strength in the move.
On the daily chart, SOL price has broken above the key December 14 higher low at $15.05, signifying that it has flipped the medium-term trend bullish. If it can hold above the $19.70 February 10 low, the outlook remains bullish, despite weak momentum as measured by RSI. However, bears are in the driving seat short-term given the FUD surrounding the outage, and for bulls to get excited again, it will probably require a break above the February 26 high at $23.54, suggesting the peaks and troughs are indeed rising again, with targets at $24.30, where the 200-day SMA sits, and then $27.10.
In addition, Yakovenko further said Solana Labs has been working with third-party core engineering teams to focus on stability. With the outages wreaking havoc, Solana’s NFT sales volume was recorded to be 84.8 million, down by 57% over the past 30 days. Transactions also declined by nearly 30% during the same period, while buyers and sellers noted an uptick. The total value locked (TVL) in Solana was found to be at a little over $257 million.
The Solana network has lost over 97% since forming a peak in November 2021 during the bull run when it skyrocketed to $10.3 billion. However, the network is trying to regain stability and is working on improving its network upgrade process, which includes forming an adversarial team, improving the restart process, and focusing on stability.
Yakovenko believes the recent issues amid the 1.14 network upgrade for improving speed and scalability indicate the need for stability during upgrades. Solana plans to maintain the balance between reliability and improving speed and scalability on the network. Until now, core engineers were fixing problems impacting the network’s speed and usability. However, core engineers now plan to improve the process for software release following the 1.14 release.
Solana has outlined a plan for core engineers to help improve the upgrade process. Core engineers will release the new version to mainnet-beta validators for an upgrade only after repeatedly stress-testing the testnet. This will help remove unnecessary steps before a network upgrade. An adversarial team is formed from nearly 1/3rd of the Solana Labs core engineering team to help find issues with upgrades. The team will also provide hardware to run medium to large clusters for adversarial simulation. Solana team plans to automate the restart process, resolving failures with simpler procedures. Therefore, nodes will automatically discover the “latest optimistically confirmed slot” and share the ledger with each other if it is missing.
Working it out
Solana is working on improving its network upgrade process to enhance user experience and stability. The network’s recent 20-hour outage following a network upgrade caused severe backlash from the crypto community. However, Solana’s team is working on improving the process for software release rollouts by bringing in additional external developers and auditors to test and find exploits and continuing to support external core engineers. The network plans to maintain the balance between reliability and improving speed and scalability on the network. The team is working on automating the restart process, resolving failures with simpler procedures, and forming an adversarial team to help find issues with upgrades. While the network is trying to regain stability, it may take some time for the network to restore its reputation and regain investors’ confidence.
