- Strong rumors of an DDoS attack on the Solana blockchain spread over the last weekend and the same continue into the week.
- However, upon further investigation, it turned out that this was an IDO attack that dropped the transaction throughput on the platform.
Etheruem-competitor Solana has been in the news after its tremendous rally in the crypto space over the last few months. Besides, the Solana blockchain has been one of the preferred platforms recently among DeFi participants. This has played a huge role in helping the native cryptocurrency SOL grab a spot in the top five cryptocurrencies by market cap.
Related: Solana heightened institutional interest leads to listing on Bloomberg’s crypto terminal
However, Solana has in the last few days faced accusations of network congestions. Even today, December 15, a Bitcoin Association member Roy Murphy pointed out a massive transaction failure happening on the Solana blockchain. In one of his recent tweets, Murphy noted:
Warning! Over the last 24 hours, more than 60% of all Solana transactions have failed. That’s right, a $50 billion top #5 market cap digital asset is losing over 2000 transactions every second! Just switch it off already!
Complaining about the heavy congestion on Solana, the crypto community said that Solana was facing another outage and a possible DDoS attack.
SolChicks, an NFT fantasy play-to-earn game, also noted that thousands of users trying to trade $CHICKS caused the Solana network to falter. It was also responsible for the Raydium DEX crash. Although the Solana blockchain reportedly has a potential transaction throughput of 50,000 TPS, this dropped to just 1,000 TPS after the SolChicks IDO issues.
Solana co-founder rejects claims of a network outage
Solana co-founder Raj Gokal stated that there’s a bubble created around the network outage happening on Solana. In his recent tweet thread, he said:
If your timeline is telling you that @solana went down yesterday, consider stepping out of your bubble. when you exit the bubble, look back at the bubble, look at the people who built the bubble, and ask yourself if you want to go back into that bubble.
He also accused two people of spreading misinformation regarding the Solana network outage with others helping them to create a false narrative. “Two people who wanted their 15 minutes of fame yesterday, neither of which have ever used the network, decided that “slightly slower for a little while” meant “crashed and critically flawed”. They tweeted, and a lot of people decided to amplify that misinformation,” he added.
Related: New report says each Solana network transaction takes less energy than two google searches
On the other hand, some people also came in support of Gokal stating that the Solana blockchain is absolutely performing well. Mert, a member of Coinbase’s engineering team stated: “There has been an *insane* amount of FUD regarding Solana recently. While it is absolutely fine (and encouraged) to criticize Solana for its various design decisions and tradeoffs – most people have been perpetuating flat out lies”.
As the FUD spread over the last wekend, Solana (SOL) price corrected nearly 33% from $200 levels. On December 14, the SOL price touched a low of $151 before bouncing back once again.