Tag: Solana

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Blockchain Crypto News Solana

Solana Launches Web3-Focused Smartphone, Crypto Twitter Not Convinced

Solana Labs this week announced the launch of the Solana Mobile Stack software ecosystem for Android, alongside ‘Saga’ – an Android smartphone. Unfortunately, the news has been greeted with outright contempt by some sections of crypto Twitter:

Network Outages Still a Concern

Mobile phones are finally set to accommodate Web3, and the reaction has been mixed, to say the least. Solana’s announcement of the ‘Saga’ Android and the most recent Solana mobile stack (SMS) software for developers has been accompanied by comparisons to Apple and Ethereum; however, many voices have also raised concerns regarding Solana’s frequent network outages:

Regardless of the negative public feedback, some of the features users can expect to see in the Saga include a software custodian solution called Seed Vault, a mobile wallet adapter, and Solana Pay for Android. Solana also has plans to release a DApp store for its mobile devices so users can access Web3 with ease. The SMS development kit is available for download now, though the phone itself is unlikely to hit the market before early 2023.

But Why a Smartphone?

The idea for the Saga smartphone followed the release of SMS and was conceived by Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder and CEO of Solana Labs. Yakovenko wondered what it would look like if one billion people were using crypto and realised that the best method for supporting the take-up would be to create a hardware wallet out of a phone:

The Android will feature a 6.67” OLED display, 12GB RAM, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor, and 512GB of internal storage. Solana is hoping that Saga will become the “gold standard” for Web3 smartphones and plans to display the full capabilities of SMS.

Solana Has Been Suffering

The Saga announcement follows a relatively negative past few months for Solana. January saw the company slide by 42 percent in seven days, with $SOL (Solana’s native token) hit hard thanks to the new year crypto sell-off. This and the addition of several duplicate transactions and downtimes led to rising tensions among users.

And in May, Solana experienced a seven-hour down period after bots targeted the NFT minting tool ‘Candy Machine’. The bots caused four million transaction requests, which the platform could not cope with, and users were once again left questioning the competence of the blockchain.

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Blockchain Crypto News DeFi Solana

Solana Challenges Poor Safety Rating from DeFi Watchdog

Solana has rejected the safety ranking of “second-worst” that it received from DeFi Safety this week after the DeFi watchdog raised concerns over the platform’s frequent downtime and unsatisfactory node structure:

Lack of Transparency Cited

There are five different criteria that DeFi Safety uses in its blockchain evaluations: security and testing, node count, node diversity, documentation, and supporting software. The concerns raised by the watchdog predominantly revolve around the lack of transparency from the network’s archive node, alongside Solana’s processes for storing the blockchain’s data.

Beyond the platform’s insufficient node clients (software aiding users in connecting to the blockchain), Solana’s repeated downtime was a decisive factor for DeFi Safety.

Solana presents systemic technical risk. There is no doubt about it. User funds, in our eyes, are at risk. We penalise them heavily for downtime because users cannot access their funds when the chain goes down.

DeFi Safety Twitter – @DeFiSafety

Presently, Solana has only a single piece of software for its node operators, which DeFi Safety claims has not been audited since 2019. However, the report isn’t entirely negative as the watchdog has given the platform credit for aspects where it performs well.

Credit where it’s due, Solana has made significant strides in validation decentralisation. Thanks to an impressive program that incentivises many validators on other continents, Solana scores well on this point.

DeFi Safety Twitter – @DeFiSafety

More than 15 blockchains and 240 decentralised finance protocols have been reviewed by DeFi Safety so far. Ronin blockchain, Axie Infinity’s popular play-to-earn gaming platform, was ranked the worst. Ronin was hacked for US$625 million in March, in what was the biggest DeFi hack to date.

Solana’s Plagued Past

Heavy downtime has plagued Solana for some time, with several instances over past months inconveniencing users. On January 6, Solana crashed temporarily following a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack which caused massive transaction delays. Upsettingly, a second crash followed in the same week. Solana denied it was due to another potential DDoS attack, claiming the downtime was the result of an increase in high compute transactions.

Last month, Solana was down for seven hours after bots attacked ‘Candy Machine’, the platform’s NFT minting tool, causing four million transaction requests that the platform could not keep up with.

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Blockchain Crypto News Hackers Solana

Solana Suffers 7 Hours’ Downtime as Bots Attack NFT Minting Tool ‘Candy Machine’

The beginning of May has seen a nearly seven-hour Solana crash, believed to be the result of a bot attack that targeted the company’s NFT minting tool ‘Candy Machine’ and has left users questioning the competence of the blockchain:

Candy Machine Suffers Sugar Hit

A tidal wave of traffic slammed Solana’s ‘Candy Machine’ on April 30. The bots responsible caused four million transaction requests, totalling 100 gigabits of data per second and setting a record for the platform, which could not keep up.

Later that night, the validator operators performed a cluster restart of its Mainnet Beta network. However, it wasn’t fast enough to stop the criticism that echoed around social media from Solana users and onlookers:

Solana’s plans to combat these crashes involve a botting penalty that is soon set to deploy to the program. It will only be the beginning of a broader effort but should work to stabilise the network, hopefully preventing similar issues in the future and stopping Solana from, negatively, being the talk of the town:

Not Solana’s First Outage

Solana has quite the track record of network outages. Notably, on January 4 the network was temporarily down due to a DDoS attack, causing huge transaction delays. Shockingly, this was followed by a second crash within the same week, believed to be a knock-on effect of the first attack.