Solana Network Faces Outage Resulting in Dips in SOL Token Value

By: Eliza Bennet

The Solana blockchain network encountered a significant outage on 6th February impacting the Mainnet-Beta cluster, leading to a drop in the value of Solana's SOL token by around 5%. The network's validators were prompt in assessing the situation and aimed to restart the cluster using version 1.17.20. There were no transactions processed for nearly two hours, as indicated by the network's blockchain explorer.

The outage was confirmed by an official post on social media from the network engineers stating they were 'investigating an outage on mainnet-beta'. This isn't an isolated issue, as Solana has had a history of encountering such outages in the past.

The value of SOL saw a decrease of almost 5% when news broke out, going down to approximately $94. Despite this setback and a general market slump, Solana retains its position as the sixth-largest digital asset in terms of market capitalization. Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the now-defunct FTX exchange, played a large part in staving off damage from the dip, considering his extensive ties with the network.

The situation was still serious however, as further posts suggested that recovery might not be possible without a coordinated cluster restart. Despite the challenges, Solana's network remains popular amid crypto enthusiasts due to its transaction speeds and lower costs when compared to more established rivals like Ethereum.