Bitcoin Layer-2 Network Stacks Halted for 9 Hours—What Happened?

Stacks, a layer-2 scaling community for Bitcoin, skilled a big disruption Friday as block manufacturing stalled for almost 9 hours.

The incident, attributed to a Bitcoin reorganization (reorg) and “surprising miner habits”, despatched shockwaves by means of the Stacks ecosystem and triggered a 12% drop within the STX token price over the previous 24 hours.

Stacks was constructed to allow performance like smart contracts to energy decentralized purposes (dapps) and NFTs on the Bitcoin community, for the reason that blockchain itself wasn’t designed for such options which have flourished on rival networks through the years.

The community is designed to leverage Bitcoin’s safety and immutability, offering a safe platform for builders to construct scalable blockchain purposes whereas nonetheless being rooted in Bitcoin.

The difficulty started earlier as we speak when the Stacks community encountered a delay in block manufacturing. The Stacks Standing Twitter (aka X) account, the official channel for community updates, attributed the issue to a mix of things.

“We’re experiencing a delay in Stacks block manufacturing attributable to surprising mining habits mixed with a Bitcoin reorg,” the tweet acknowledged. “Core builders within the ecosystem are investigating the difficulty and dealing to resolve it as shortly as potential.”

The Bitcoin blockchain sometimes undergoes reorganizations, the place beforehand confirmed blocks are invalidated. Whereas unusual, these occasions can disrupt purposes and scaling networks constructed on high of Bitcoin, like Stacks.

On this case, Stacks community backers say the Bitcoin reorg is a part of the explanation that the community went down for about 9 hours. Builders are additionally reportedly persevering with to watch miner exercise to forestall related disruptions sooner or later.

“Sudden miner habits” could discuss with miners not updating their software program or coordinating successfully in response to a Bitcoin reorganization, inflicting delays in block manufacturing, and implies technical or operational points amongst miners.

The nine-hour block manufacturing stoppage impacted buying and selling of the STX token. The token worth plummeted by 12% on the day, to a present worth of $1.90, reflecting investor concern in regards to the community’s stability.

Whereas the disruption highlights the potential vulnerabilities of blockchain networks constructed on high of Bitcoin, the Stacks staff says it’s dedicated to bettering community resilience.

Stacks co-creator Muneeb Ali pointed out that the upcoming Nakamoto improve, which focuses on a brand new consensus mechanism, is designed to get rid of the potential for forks and mitigate the influence of Bitcoin reorganizations.

The Nakamoto improve was beforehand expected to go live in late spring, however was delayed at the last minute attributable to potential points that had been deemed too extreme to handle in a later replace. Now it’s set to roll out in August.

Decrypt reached out to Ali for remark however didn’t instantly obtain a response.

Edited by Andrew Hayward