There was a malfunction in the Solana blockchain clock. The time on the network is half an hour behind the real time. The problem does not affect the operation of the network, but it can lead to a decrease in the rewards for staking.
Right now, the Solana network clock is half an hour behind real time. A problem message greets visitors to the Solana Status website
According to the message, the problem does not affect network performance. But, transactions on the network will display other timestamps.
The time discrepancy is explained by Solana's slower slot time. Slot time is the time interval duringator can send a block to the network. Ideally, Solana’s slot time should be 400 milliseconds (ms), but now, as data from the Solana blockchain explorer dashboard shows, it is, on average, 730 which the validms.
Solana is a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchain that also uses Proof-of-History (PoH). PoH's goal is to keep track of Solana time so that each node in the network keeps an accurate record of time. Solana also uses clusters, a set of validators responsible for processing transactions in its blockchain. PoH allows decentralized time tracking on all nodes of the cluster.
If the slot time becomes significantly more than 400 ms, then the cluster clock starts to drift — it is out of sync with real-time. This may cause economic consequences associated with a decrease in the annual remuneration for staking.
The reward will decrease due to a decrease in the number of epochs — periods after each of which the reward is paid. If the slots time is slower, then the epochs become longer, because there should be 432,000 slots in each epoch. With an ideal time interval of 400 ms, there are 182 epochs per year, each of which lasts from two to three days. So, a slower slot time means fewer epochs. And, as a result, less remuneration.
This is not the first problem that Solana has faced this year. A month ago, bots were disabling the network, which led to a complete shutdown of the production of blocks for seven hours. Solana also had a lot of problems at the beginning of the year. We wish that Solana gets out of the series of hardships and continue to observe.