Aptos, a blockchain platform, faced an unexpected outage last night that endured for more than five hours, coinciding with its hosting of a mass drawing application in celebration of its one-year anniversary.
Data sourced from the Aptos block explorer indicates that on-chain transactions ground to a halt for approximately five hours on October 18, causing a notable disruption in network activity. Normally, transactions on the Aptos blockchain confirm in less than a second, but during this outage, the platform experienced a significant delay.
Technical Glitch Impacts Aptos Blockchain’s Anniversary Event
Moreover, the blockchain explorer, AptoScan, reveals a time gap of 5 hours and 6 minutes between two consecutive blocks, a highly unusual occurrence for the network. Additionally, transaction fees on the Aptos network experienced an abrupt increase during the outage, spiking from around 0.2 APT, equivalent to approximately $1, to 1.72 APT, valued at $8.58 at the time.
Launched in October of the previous year, Aptos, a layer-1 platform based on the Move programming language, emerged as a spin-off from Meta’s (formerly Facebook) cryptocurrency initiative, initially known as Libra.
In commemoration of its first anniversary, the Aptos Foundation introduced Graffio.art, a community drawing platform where Aptos wallet users could collectively contribute to a blank canvas, engendering a unique community art piece.
Aptos Tokens Experience Minor Dip, Quickly Recovering Post-Outage
According to Mohammad Sheikh, the co-founder and CEO of Aptos Labs, approximately 4,000 users actively engaged in painting on the digital canvas before the untimely disruption transpired. However, shortly after Sheikh’s tweet highlighting the enthusiastic participation, the Aptos mainnet experienced a sudden and unexpected outage.
Aptos immediately conveyed this issue through a notification on Twitter, informing the community that transactions on the network had been adversely affected. The team diligently worked to resolve the problem, successfully restoring the functionality of the blockchain after a five-hour hiatus.
Decrypt, a respected cryptocurrency news outlet, has initiated contact with Aptos to ascertain the root cause of the outage and the mitigation measures taken by the development team to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future.
During the outage, market data from Coingecko reveals that the value of APTOS, the native gas-paying token on the Aptos blockchain, experienced a minor dip, dropping by 2.2%. However, the token quickly rebounded, returning to the $5 valuation level.
It is important to note that despite this temporary setback, the token’s overall performance has demonstrated resilience, as Coingecko’s data indicates a 35.8% decrease in the value of APTOS since its launch one year ago. This decline, while notable, should be viewed in the context of the broader cryptocurrency market’s inherent volatility.
In summary, Aptos, a blockchain platform born out of Meta’s crypto initiative, faced an unscheduled outage during its one-year anniversary celebration, impacting on-chain transactions and leading to a temporary spike in transaction fees. The incident underscores the ongoing technical challenges faced by blockchain networks and the need for proactive mitigation measures to ensure the stable and uninterrupted operation of these platforms. Despite the brief dip in APTOS token value during the outage, it quickly regained its footing, affirming its resilience in the market.