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Solana Has Finally Rolled Out Fix for Congestion Issue, SOL Bounces 8%

The Solana developer community has launched a new release that addresses ongoing congestion issues facing the layer-1 blockchain.

Solana users have not enjoyed the smoothest of experiences in the past few weeks. The network, which prides itself on being one of the fastest and most performant blockchains, has faced a surge in user demand and bot transactions. This development clogged Solana, leading to more than half of user transactions ultimately failing.

However, the Solana developer community has now rolled out a fix that addresses the ongoing congestion issue. Recall that in the past week, a version containing the proposed fixes was launched on testnet. Fast forward to the present; the newly released Solana v1.17.31 is now being recommended for use by validators on the network.

Notably, the new release was only recommended for release under an hour to press time. Hence, most validators still run the older Solana versions, as data from Solana explorer, Solscan shows. Precisely, over 84% of validators still run version v1.17.28 and must now upgrade their nodes for the recently released patches to go into effect.

Solana Node Versions
Node version run by Solana validators (Source: Solscan)

Solana (SOL) Recovers 8%

The price of Solana has dropped over 15% in the past week. While the drop has largely coincided with a broader market sell-off, overall sentiment is that the network’s congestion woes have limited economic activity on the network. The issue may also have created fear and uncertainty about the network’s future in the minds of investors.

However, following news of the rollout of a solution, the price of Solana has bounced back, albeit also aided by improved market conditions. In the past 24 hours, Solana has gained over 8%, recovering from daily lows of around $134 to as high as $148 at the time of writing. Earlier in the day, the coin peaked at around $152.

Solana Price Chart (April 15 2024)

It is worth mentioning that the current trading value evidently remains well below the coin’s yearly high, which stands at around $210. However, the quick recovery would raise hopes in the minds of Solana investors, including the possibility of a comeback after losing ground on a close rival, Binance coin (BNB).

While Solana (SOL) had previously overtaken BNB as the fourth-largest cryptocurrency, the latter has since bounced back strongly and now has a market cap that is over $18 billion higher than SOL at the time of writing.

Wilfred Michael

Wilfred Michael is a highly experienced cryptocurrency journo. He has spent more than five years covering this exciting new technological space, and relishes the opportunity to play a role in driving what he considers to be the future of finance.