Solana Network Nears Halt as Hosting Glitch Knocks 29% of Staked SOL Offline

The Solana (SOL-USD) network came close to a complete freeze on Wednesday morning. A routing glitch at web hosting provider Teraswitch knocked 29% of all staked SOL offline within minutes.

Solana automatically stops processing transactions if 33.34% of its staked tokens go delinquent. Data from staking platform Marinade Finance shows the network reached 86% of that halt threshold. At the peak of the outage, roughly 20 million online SOL stood between the network and a total shutdown.

Solana Relies On Too Few Web Hosts

The routing error started at Teraswitch’s Miami location and quickly spread through an internal relay in Amsterdam. The outage disconnected 12 data center sites across Europe and Asia, affecting about 90 validator nodes. Teraswitch found the software bug in 10 minutes, but full network recovery took 33 minutes.

The outage showed that Solana relies too much on a small group of web hosts. Single network providers control large groups of internet addresses. One single provider hosts 27.34% of all staked SOL, breaking the Solana Foundation’s 25% safety limit. During the glitch, 94% of the stake on that single provider went dark at once.

Solana’s Backup Systems Failed to Switch Over

Backup systems struggled to work during the disruption. Out of 74 validator computers tracked by Marinade Finance, only three automatically switched over to secondary backup locations. Major network operators, including Helius, stayed offline for the full 33 minutes.

Despite the close call, user funds remained safe. Offline validators lost a total of 333 SOL in rewards, worth about $25,600, which system bonds will cover. SOL token prices dipped 0.7% to sit near $75.70 after the event. Marinade Finance plans to set stricter limits on web hosts to spread out network locations before future web issues happen.