Arbitrum is an Ethereum L2 rollup (Layer 2) network. It experienced problems that stopped production of blocks as well as the confirmation of transactions. The Arbitrum team reported that the problem was caused by downtime at its sequencer (a node responsible for managing the order of transactions), which left the network inaccessible for seven hours.
Arbitrum Stalls For 7 Hours
Arbitrum was an optimistic scaling program for Ethereum. On January 9, the network ceased completely. Users were unable make transactions for around seven hours. According to Arbitrum, the problem was caused by problems with the main sequencer node. This failed and led to the network’s stall. According to Arbitrum docs, the sequencer is a “specially designated full node, which is given limited power to control the ordering of transactions.”
Rollup Twitter Account reportedFirst, they clarified that the sequencer was down and then stated that the money were all safe.
Offchain Labs mentioned in a post mortem how there were many other factors that contributed to the circumstances that led up to the rollup.
We have redundant redundancies in place that allow us to move to another Sequencer. However, this morning’s software update caused them to fail to go into effect. Due to this, Sequencer was unable to process new transactions.
Probleme in rollup land
Arbitrum isn’t the only one to have problems with its network operation. This same issue was also encountered by Arbitrum in September after the Sequencer went down. For 45 minutes, the network became unresponsive. Offchain Labs reported that the network was not operational for 45 minutes.
A bug caused the Sequencer’s downtime when it was receiving a large number of transactions at once. A fix was implemented after the issue was identified.
Although Ethereum has been focusing its efforts on scaling this solution, many users are still not happy with the proposition. According to Delphi Digital, these L2 solutions are “losing market share to L1’s in recent months, despite the migration of DeFi protocols from Ethereum.”
Arbitrum, which was introduced on mainnet in August last year, is still the most popular rollup solution within the Ethereum ecosystem. It has over $2.62 billion in total value locked (TVL). Data from L2beat (an Ethereum L2 statistics company) shows that the total value of Arbitrum is more than $2.62 Billion.
What do you think about Arbitrum’s recent downtime? Leave a comment below.
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