TON: blockchain offline for a few hours

Starting from yesterday the blockchain of TON went offline. 

The problem now seems to be resolved, but it could reoccur. 

The blockchain of TON offline

Last night the official X profile of the TON blockchain warned that there were some problems. 

TON Blockchain is currently experiencing a disruption in block production.
The issue is occurring due to the abnormal load currently on TON. Several validators are unable to clean the database of old transactions, which has led to losing the consensus.

TON Core has issued a call…

— TON (@ton_blockchain) August 28, 2024

The problem encountered was an interruption in block production.

Due to this problem, no transaction was being recorded on the TON blockchain anymore, thus temporarily leaving all those pending unconfirmed. 

Not long after, however, they reported that the problem was resolved. 

TON is now producing blocks normally!

We are back online. https://t.co/iXM6kF464T pic.twitter.com/FQ6eOt9fok

— TON (@ton_blockchain) August 28, 2024

At this moment, it appears that the TON blockchain has once again started producing blocks normally, so over time all pending transactions will be validated. 

According to the publication times of the notices, the problema lasted for just over four hours.

The cause

Technically the problem was caused by the fact that several validators were no longer momentarily able to clean the database of old transactions, which led to the loss of consensus.

At that point, in the absence of consensus, new blocks could no longer be produced. 

At the base of the problem there would be network congestion due to an unusually high load caused by the recent airdrop of the memecoin DOGS.

The airdrop of DOGS was launched a few days ago, and it concluded the day before yesterday.

Once the DOGS tokens were distributed, those who received them started trading them on the crypto market, and to do so, they had to transfer them from the wallet to an exchange. 

The trading volumes, which started quietly on Monday, exploded yesterday, surpassing one billion dollars. This is a figure higher than yesterday’s daily trading volumes of the same Toncoin, or Dogecoin, just below those of XRP. 

Evidently the blockchain of TON, which is still relatively recent, is not yet adequate to support strong and sudden surges of load like this. 

It should still be specified that in the end no transaction on the TON blockchain should have been canceled or unconfirmed, and that no asset has been lost due to this problem. 

The arrest of the founder and CEO of Telegram, Pavel Durov, does not seem to have anything to do with this problem. 

DOGS

The token DOGS landed on the crypto markets just on Monday. 

It debuted at 1.8 thousandths of a dollar, but within a few hours it had already dropped to 1.2. 

In reality, the initial price is often not very indicative in the crypto markets, so it would be better to take as a reference the 1.2 thousandths of a dollar reached shortly after the launch. 

In fact, yesterday the price of DOGS hardly ever moved from that level, while today, after the resumption of activities on the TON blockchain, it rose to over 1.35 thousandths. 

The thing that surprises the most, however, is something else. 

At this price, the theoretical overall market capitalization of this new token would exceed 700 million dollars, which already places it on the first day of presence in the crypto markets in the top 100 of the largest cryptocurrencies in the world by market capitalization, ahead of XTZ (Tezos), dYdX, and XAUt (Tether Gold). 

Such a debut is quite surprising, and it shows how much memecoins on TON are gaining traction. It is still important to remember that memecoins tend to perform poorly in the long run, and that the particularly favorable moment for memecoins on TON should only be temporary. 

Toncoin

A different discussion is the one that concerns Toncoin (TON), that is, the cryptocurrency of the crypto ecosystem of TON (The Open Network). 

Toncoin in fact has dropped from ninth to tenth place among the cryptocurrencies with the highest market capitalization, surpassed by TRX of Tron. 

In this case, the problem was precisely Durov’s arrest. 

On Friday the price of TON was $6.8, while on Saturday, with the spread of the news, it suddenly dropped to $5.6. 

However, the decline did not stop, because yesterday it also dropped to 5.1$. Today, on the other hand, it has slightly recovered, up to 5.4$. 

Compared to seven days ago it is losing 19%, while for example Ethereum loses 4%, but it still remains 130% higher than at the beginning of the year. Compared to the all-time high in June, it has dropped to -35%.

It should also be noted that the news of the blockchain offline last night did not bring the price back to yesterday’s bottom, also because the cause was an excess of use, and not a technical problem. Furthermore, at the beginning of August it also fell below $5.1, so the current price is perfectly in line with that of recent months.