What Happened: The Solana network experienced an outage due to a bug in the BPF loader, critical for deploying and running programs on the network. This issue, related to a recent update (upgrade 0093), was identified but not yet fixed. There's speculation that the bug might have been manually triggered, leading to the network downtime.

How It Was Fixed: Developers re-wrote the problematic parts of the BPF loader code to fix the bugs. The core software of Solana had to be updated and patched by all users to restart the network.

Restarting the Network: To restart, validators had to agree on the last valid block. The network resumed operations once 80% of validators (based on staked SOL) confirmed this block. However, there's a possibility of another halt if the fix isn't stable.

Preventing Future Outages: The Solana team is constantly working on improving the system. This outage is part of the experimental nature of blockchain technology, and efforts are underway to prevent similar issues in the future.

Impact and Future Considerations: The restart might lead to a surge in DeFi activities as bots attempt to capitalize on arbitrage opportunities. This could temporarily strain the network. Additionally, future updates and changes in Solana might undergo more rigorous scrutiny and debate, especially regarding fee market changes.

Solana Downtime Counter