Tag: validator infrastructure

  • Solana Marks 30 Months Without a Full Outage—But Infrastructure Risks Remain

    Solana Marks 30 Months Without a Full Outage—But Infrastructure Risks Remain

    Solana’s Uptime Streak: A New Reliability Milestone

    Solana has long been criticized for network outages. In 2026, that reputation is being revised. According to the Solana Foundation, the blockchain has now recorded 100% uptime since February 2024 — roughly 30 straight months without a full network outage. The milestone was announced on September 14, 2026.

    This is a significant departure from the network’s earlier years, when software bugs, congestion, and validator coordination problems repeatedly interrupted block production.

    Why August 2026 Was a Stress Test

    On August 12, 2026, a routing failure at infrastructure provider TeraSwitch temporarily took 28.83% of staked SOL offline. According to Solana Compass, 90 validators were unavailable for about 33 minutes. That brought the network within roughly 4.5 percentage points of the threshold where finality would have stopped.

    Despite the severity, Solana kept producing blocks, transactions continued to land, and finality was never interrupted. The infrastructure provider reportedly recovered within 30 minutes.

    Infrastructure Concentration Remains a Vulnerability

    The incident exposed a less visible risk: many validators may be independent, but they often rely on the same physical infrastructure. The Solana Foundation noted that TeraSwitch had previously hosted about 38% of network stake before efforts reduced that share to under 30%.

    Diversifying hosting, networking, and data center dependencies is essential to prevent a single routing or connectivity failure from affecting a large portion of the network.

    Performance Gains Raise the Bar

    Solana is also increasing capacity. Its August ecosystem report says target slot time dropped from 400 milliseconds to 300 milliseconds after two reductions during the month.

    The network processed a record 216 million non-vote transactions in a single day and 1.32 billion non-vote transactions from August 17–23. It also reported more than USD 4.28 billion in real-world assets held across over 596,126 addresses.

    These milestones increase the importance of reliability, as more real-world financial activity depends on continuous settlement.

    Are There Any Current Solana Network Issues?

    As of September 16, 2026, Solana’s official updates do not report a full network outage. The August incident disrupted validator infrastructure but did not halt the blockchain.

    Users should remember the distinction between network-wide availability and isolated issues involving wallets, exchanges, RPC endpoints, or decentralized applications.

    Final Thoughts

    Solana’s reliability record has improved dramatically, with no full outage reported since February 2024.

    The real test will be whether it can keep that record while transaction throughput, tokenized assets, and payment activity continue to expand.

    Frequently Asked Questions

    Is the Solana network currently experiencing an outage?

    As of September 16, 2026, Solana’s official updates do not report a full network outage. Individual wallets, exchanges, RPC providers, or applications can still experience isolated disruptions while the blockchain remains operational.

    When was Solana’s last major network outage?

    Solana’s last full network outage occurred in February 2024. The Solana Foundation says the blockchain has maintained about 30 consecutive months of uninterrupted network operation since then.

    What happened to Solana in August 2026?

    A routing failure at infrastructure provider TeraSwitch temporarily took nearly 29% of staked SOL offline. Solana continued producing blocks, processing transactions, and maintaining network finality throughout the incident.

    Why is infrastructure concentration a risk for Solana?

    Independent validators can still depend on the same hosting or networking providers. If too much stake relies on one provider, a major infrastructure failure could affect a significant portion of validators at the same time.

    How much transaction activity is Solana processing?

    Solana recorded a record 216 million non-vote transactions in a single day during August 2026. Weekly non-vote transactions reached 1.32 billion from August 17–23, providing a significant test of network capacity.

  • Flowra and Honeypot Integrate Sanctions Screening Directly into Solana Block Building

    Flowra and Honeypot Integrate Sanctions Screening Directly into Solana Block Building

    SEOUL, South Korea — Flowra, the open orderflow auction and validator infrastructure platform for Solana, has announced a collaboration with compliance infrastructure provider Honeypot to embed sanctions and risk screening directly into the block-building process.

    The integration combines Honeypot’s compliance intelligence with Flowra’s Programmable Block Policy (PBP), enabling institutional validators to define compliance rules that govern which transactions and bundles can be included during block construction.

    The framework supports screening against sanctions-related criteria, including wallet addresses associated with sanctioned entities, as well as network-level indicators such as VPNs, proxy services, and Tor exit nodes. These methods account for an estimated 31–61% of traffic arriving through network obfuscation. The system is also designed to accommodate additional enterprise compliance providers over time.

    Each validator will define its own policy, preserving validator autonomy while offering operators greater flexibility over block-building decisions.

    “Public blockchains have become increasingly attractive to institutional participants, but the infrastructure hasn’t evolved to give validators the compliance controls many regulated operators expect,” said Harry Hwang, CEO of Flowra. “We’re working with Honeypot to bring compliance into the block-building process itself, allowing validators to define and enforce their own policies before transactions are included on-chain. The goal isn’t to make the network less open, it’s to give individual validators the flexibility to operate in a way that reflects their own requirements.”

    The collaboration will initially focus on sanctions screening, wallet screening, and auditability for regulated institutions, with additional technical details to be shared as implementation progresses.

    About Flowra

    Flowra is a blockchain infrastructure company building validator and order flow solutions for the Solana ecosystem. The company develops technology designed to improve transaction transparency, value distribution, and incentive alignment across validators, users, and builders. Through its validator infrastructure, delegation programs, and MEV-related technologies, Flowra aims to create a more open, efficient, and scalable foundation for the next generation of blockchain networks.

    About Honeypot

    Honeypot provides compliance intelligence for platforms operating under sanctions and geo-restriction requirements. By detecting VPNs, proxies, Tor exit nodes, and other forms of location obfuscation, Honeypot helps exchanges, DeFi protocols, and financial institutions strengthen compliance controls and support regulatory audit requirements.