Avalanche: the blockchain crypto interrupted for over 5 hours

The Avalanche blockchain crypto experienced an interruption on Friday, failing to produce blocks for over 5 hours. 

Avalanche: the interruption of the crypto blockchain for over 5 hours on Friday, February 23

Apparently, on Friday, February 23, 2024, the Avalanche blockchain crypto experienced an interruption of over 5 hours, failing to produce blocks.

The finalization of the blocks then resumed thanks to the intervention of the developers, who released a software update that fixed a faulty logic in the code.

And in fact, here is how the notice to Avalanche validators reads:

“Please update your AvalancheGo node to version v1.11.1: https://github.com/ava-labs/avalanchego/releases/tag/v1.11.1 This version disables the logic added in v1.10.18 that caused validators to send an excessive amount of gossip to each other.”

Avalanche validators provide a weighted bandwidth allocation for each peer, and this flawed logic caused each node to saturate its allocation with unnecessary gossip about transactions.

This dynamic prevented the pull requests issued by the validator from being processed promptly and led to a consent deadlock (as surveys were not being handled). As soon as a sufficient number of stakes update to this release, consensus should return to normal. February 23, 15:59 UTC”

Basically, validators are entities scattered around the world that manage the nodes of the blockchain, protecting the network and processing transactions. 

The software patch has fixed an issue where nodes were passing more information than necessary, which was putting a strain on the network and eventually taking it offline.

Avalanche: the blockchain crypto back in action and the hypotheses of Ava Labs co-founder

During the five hours of investigation, Ava Labs co-founder Kevin Sekniqi spoke about the Avalanche blockchain crypto case.

Obviously this is some esoteric bug from some edge case which should be handled quickly.

Likely some mempool handling issue with inscriptions that hit some untested edge cases.

— Kevin Sekniqi (@kevinsekniqi) February 23, 2024

“We are investigating the issue with the primary Avalanche network block production. It seems to be related to a new wave of registrations launched about an hour ago. Obviously, this is an esoteric bug due to an edge case that should be handled quickly. It is probably a mempool management issue with registrations that has affected some untested edge cases.”

Basically, for Sekniqi, the cause of the problem was “the wave of registrations” that occurred an hour before the interruption on the Avalanche network. Registrations are a way to record arbitrary data on a blockchain without smart contracts.  

The price of AVAX

Anyway, looking at the price chart of the crypto Avalanche (AVAX), it seems there was a dump on Friday and Saturday. However, from Saturday until today, it seems that this price dump has already been recovered.

And indeed, AVAX is now worth $36.63 still down 8% from seven days ago. On Saturday, AVAX had hit its weekly low at $35.24. 

Looking at the whole of February, however, the ninth crypto by market cap, AVAX, had recorded a bull market. The price at the beginning of the month was $32.4 compared to $43.27 in the middle of the month. 

Going into January 2024, Avalanche made headlines after announcing a $100 million fund dedicated to memecoins. This is the “Culture Catalyst” fund, originally designed to support NFT artists and now open to memecoin projects on Avalanche.