In this lesson
- go through Solana's outages and their causes
- find out what changed after them
- learn to read the measures of decentralisation: number of validators, the Nakamoto coefficient and clients
Bitcoin has not stopped writing blocks for even an hour since 2013. Solana stopped several times in its first four years – for hours, once for almost a whole day. For a network that wants to be "an exchange for the whole world" that is serious. And for you it is practical: during an outage you cannot send, sell or close a position.
The outages#
| Date | Length (about) | Cause |
|---|---|---|
| 14 September 2021 | 17 hours | a flood of bot transactions during a new token sale |
| 30 April 2022 | 7 hours | bots overwhelmed the network during an NFT mint |
| 1 June 2022 | 4.5 hours | a bug in processing a special type of transaction |
| 1 October 2022 | 6 hours | a misconfigured validator produced duplicate blocks |
| 25 February 2023 | 19 hours | a problem spreading large blocks across the network |
| 6 February 2024 | 5 hours | a bug in the validator software |
After an outage the network does not restart by itself. Validators have to coordinate – off the blockchain, in a chat – and restart from the same point. It works, but it shows how much the network depends on coordination between operators.
What has changed#
After the waves of bots, Solana got a new way of accepting transactions (the QUIC protocol), priority for connections based on stake, and priority fees that ration demand for crowded parts of the network. From February 2024 to the time of writing (October 2026) the network has not fully stopped.
A warning came in August 2026, though: a routing fault at one server provider knocked offline almost 29% of the stake, according to public reports. The network halts when more than a third is missing. The margin was a few percentage points.
How decentralised Solana is#
- Number of validators. At the peak in 2023 there were over 2,500; in 2026 around 800–900. Smaller operators leave because running a validator and voting are expensive.
- Concentration. The so-called Nakamoto coefficient is the smallest number of validators that together could halt the network. For Solana it is around 20.
- Clients. A client is the validator software. For a long time the whole network ran on one program – one bug stopped everyone. Since 2024 a second client, Firedancer, has been spreading. By mid-2026 roughly a fifth to two fifths of the stake ran Firedancer or its hybrid version Frankendancer, depending on the source.
- Hosting. A large share of validators runs at a handful of server providers – the August fault showed why that matters.
An outage is your risk too
When the network stops, you cannot sell, move funds or react to price moves on the exchanges where SOL keeps trading. Leveraged or DeFi positions may end up differently after the restart than you expected.
Common myths#
- "Solana goes down all the time." It has not fully stopped since February 2024. The risk has not disappeared, though.
- "An outage = stolen money." No money was lost in the outages; the network just stood still. Damage came mainly from people being unable to act.
- "More validators = always better." It also matters how the stake is spread, how many clients the network runs on and where validators are hosted.
Summary
- Solana had six full outages in 2021–2024, the longest about 19 hours.
- Changes to how transactions are accepted and priority fees followed; the network has not stopped since February 2024.
- Validators are fewer (around 800–900 in 2026) and the Nakamoto coefficient is around 20.
- The second client, Firedancer, lowers the risk that one bug stops the whole network.