Solana Executive Confirms Multiple Engineers Are Working to Solve Congestion Menace

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Austin Federa, the Communications Chief at Solana Labs, has announced that several developers are working together to address the network’s issue with congestion.

Solana Burdened with Extreme Congestion

Solana, represented by SOL, is a widely-used blockchain network that applies Proof-of-Stake (PoS) as its consensus mechanism to enable smart contracts. Solana’s primary goal is to address Ethereum‘s scalability challenges. However, the network is currently dealing with heavy congestion.

There have been countless debates about the precise reason behind the extreme traffic congestion. Yet, according to Federa, the main culprit is weak software systems that cannot handle the heavy volume of user activity.

Federa notes that the QUIC implementation on the Agave validator client experienced heavy traffic. He acknowledges that this issue was recognized and intended to be addressed, yet the unexpected increase in Solana’s demand took everyone by surprise. In just a few days, what was once manageable but in need of enhancement became insufficient.

Federa characterizes this predicament as a “success failure” or “planning failure.” In simpler terms, this means that Solana’s network is experiencing extreme congestion not due to a fault in its functioning, but because it was not adequately prepared for the unexpected surge in demand.

Solana Suffering from “Tech Debt”

He also describes the predicament as “technological indebtedness.” In the realm of software engineering, this term signifies the unseen obligations for extra effort down the line due to adopting a quick yet insufficient solution rather than investing more time in a superior methodology.

Federa shared an example of getting Solana ready for Firedancer, its initial independent validator client, which will entail almost entirely reworking its networking system around this year. As Federa explained, every choice comes with compromises, and at times, these compromises may lead to unexpected outcomes, such as the network congestion issue experienced by Solana.

Core developers from Anza, Firedancer, Jito, and other key contributors are putting in long hours (and sacrificing some sleep) to strengthen Solana’s networking infrastructure in response to the surge in demand currently experienced by the network.

There’s been a lot of threads on what exactly is causing the…

— Austin Federa | 🇺🇸 (@Austin_Federa) April 10, 2024

To address this problem, developers from companies like Jito, Anza, Firedancer, and key contributors are collaborating to find a solution. According to Federica, they plan to improve and experiment with modifications in the networking infrastructure to reduce current network traffic.

Regarding when the problem will be fixed, he said, “It will take some time, but we’ll get there.”

Developers Delay Crypto Projects amid Congestion on Solana

In the meantime, certain crypto initiatives on the Solana network have had to push back their launch dates indefinitely due to the network’s congestion issues. According to a report published on Tuesday, Duck Coin, an altcoin project, announced a delay in its upcoming launch.

Surge Finance made the announcement that they would delay the release of their SURGE coin and have yet to decide on a new launch date due to unfavorable conditions for transactions. Similarly, the NFT project Suit Up has chosen to postpone their launch indefinitely.

At present, the price of SOL is $165.67, representing a 4.3% decrease over the past 24 hours. Yet, there’s been a significant increase in trading activity, with a volume of $3.1 billion – a 37.64% surge compared to the previous day.

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2024-04-10 19:39