Aptos Network, a layer-1 blockchain platform that uses the Move programming language, experienced a network outage that lasted for more than five hours on Monday night. The outage affected transactions on the network and prompted some crypto exchanges to suspend deposits and withdrawals of APT, the native token of Aptos.
What caused the outage?
According to the Aptoscan network tracker, on-chain transactions on the Aptos Network were halted at 11:11 pm UTC on Oct. 18 at block 104621314. The network did not resume normal operations until 4:25 am UTC on Oct. 19.
The Aptos team did not provide a clear explanation for the cause of the outage, but hinted that it was related to the high demand for Aptos One, a new product that was launched on Oct. 17 to celebrate the first anniversary of the Aptos mainnet.
Aptos One is a suite of tools and services that aims to simplify the development and deployment of decentralized applications (DApps) on the Aptos Network. It includes a web-based IDE, a DApp store, a wallet, and a governance portal.
The team posted a tweet on X (formerly Twitter) saying: “Your energy for Aptos One was so electric, you cut the lights!” The team also assured users that their funds were safe and that they were working diligently to resolve the issue.
How did the outage affect the users and the exchanges?
The network outage had an impact on the users and the exchanges that support APT trading. Users reported that they were unable to send or receive APT transactions during the outage. Some users also expressed frustration and disappointment with the lack of communication and transparency from the Aptos team.
Some crypto exchanges, such as Upbit and OKX, announced that they had temporarily suspended deposits and withdrawals of APT due to the network outage. They advised their customers to wait until the network was restored before resuming their transactions.
The price of APT also dropped by about 10% during the outage, from $0.23 to $0.21, according to CoinGecko. However, it recovered quickly after the network was back online and reached $0.24 at the time of writing.
How did the outage compare to other blockchain outages?
The Aptos Network outage was not the first nor the last network outage that affected a blockchain platform. In fact, several other blockchain platforms have experienced similar or worse outages in recent months.
For example, in September, Base, a layer-2 scaling solution for Coinbase, suffered its first major outage since its launch in August. The outage lasted for about six hours and was caused by a bug in the Base smart contracts.
In August, Solana, a high-performance blockchain platform that competes with Aptos, experienced a network outage that lasted for about six hours as well. The outage was caused by a denial-of-service attack that overwhelmed the network with a large number of transactions.
In July, Polygon, another layer-2 scaling solution for Ethereum, experienced a network outage that lasted for about two hours. The outage was caused by an issue with one of its validators that failed to produce blocks.
These network outages highlight the challenges and risks that blockchain platforms face as they try to scale up and meet the growing demand for decentralized applications. They also underscore the importance of network security, reliability, and resilience for both users and developers.
Category: Blockchain
Meta Description: A news article about the Aptos Network outage that lasted for more than five hours on Monday night and affected transactions on its network.
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