The Solana network has recently been experiencing congestion issues due to a surge in spam transactions. This has prompted developers to take action and come up with solutions.
To address the congestion problem, Solana developers have been actively working to find solutions as users struggle with delays and dropped transactions. This is particularly noticeable on platforms like the Phantom wallet app. The root cause of the congestion is the influx of spam transactions, which has been exacerbated by an increase in memecoin-related activities. These spam transactions are straining the network’s block space, making it difficult for regular users to access the network.
In the first quarter of 2024, there was a significant increase in memecoin activity on the Solana blockchain. This reflects the growing interest among new and retail users, who are drawn to the network’s low transaction fees. However, this surge in spam transactions has become a bottleneck for Solana’s operation.
Matt Sorg, a representative from the Solana Foundation, compared Solana’s architecture to that of the internet, highlighting its decentralized transaction processing system. Unlike traditional setups with mempools, Solana sends transactions directly to block leaders. While this is efficient in normal circumstances, it can lead to transaction drops under a heavy spam load.
To tackle this issue, the Solana development team is actively working on solutions, including software patches. Co-founder of Solana, Anatoly Yakovenko, expects to see improvements in the coming week as bug fixes are rolled out. Anza, the developer of Solana’s Agave validator client, is also addressing specific issues within its QUIC implementation to enhance performance under high request volumes.
In April, the upcoming 1.18 update aims to make transaction scheduling more deterministic, streamlining processing and alleviating bottlenecks. Additionally, implementing priority fees across Solana applications will help mitigate delays and improve the user experience. This was highlighted in a March blog post from Solana Labs.
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