Innovative Approaches by Solana Developers Addressing Network Congestion Hurdles

The recent network congestion issues faced by the Solana Foundation have been attributed to a combination of high demand for Solana block space and a delay in implementing networking stack patches. In an exclusive interview with Cointelegraph during Paris Blockchain Week, Austin Federa, the strategy lead of the Solana Foundation, discussed the steps being taken to address these problems. Federa explained that the goal of the Solana project is to create the world’s fastest, open, permissionless, and decentralized network, but sometimes the team of engineers does not get it right. While the consensus layer of Solana is operating as intended, there is an acknowledgment that the network is not meeting user expectations. Despite currently processing around 700 transactions per second, more work needs to be done on the core protocol. The developers are working on fixing bottlenecks in the networking stack implementation, but there was a misalignment between the roadmap for upgrades and the expected demand on the network. Federa admitted that a less charitable interpretation of the situation could be seen as a failure to plan and implement network upgrades. However, he also noted that ecosystem developers could have anticipated the spikes in demand based on the network’s past usage. Federa drew comparisons to other blockchain networks, such as Ethereum layer-2 protocols, which have also experienced issues in recent months. He emphasized that the industry is still in a growth phase and that the beta label attached to Solana reflects the fact that it is not in its final form. Solana recently released version 1.17.31, which includes enhancements aimed at alleviating congestion on the network.