The two-hour downtime was due to a bug in the transaction scheduling logic, which led to validators crashing. The incident resulted in a drop in SUI's price and raised doubts about the network’s ability to compete with Solana.
On Thursday, between 1:15 and 3:45 am PT, the Sui Mainnet experienced a complete network outage. All validators were caught in a crash loop, halting transaction processing entirely. According to developers, the outage was caused by a bug in the newly upgraded congestion control code.
The team managed to identify and fix the issue in just over two hours. In a postmortem report, they noted plans to strengthen their testing systems to prevent similar bugs in the future.
This marked the first outage Sui has faced since its mainnet launch in May last year. Many had quickly dubbed it the “Solana Killer,” but ironically, it now seems to follow Solana’s footsteps in experiencing network outages.
Despite the incident, the sentiment around the Sui network remains strong. Its token has surged over 80% in the past month, buoyed by Bitcoin and the project’s business development efforts.
Sui’s team has been forging robust partnerships to boost network adoption. Recently, they signed a strategic partnership with the $1.5 trillion asset manager Franklin Templeton. The fund’s digital arm will support Sui ecosystem builders and introduce novel technologies to the Sui blockchain.
Earlier this month, another reputable fund, VanEck, launched a product giving millions of investors access to SUI tokens. This new financial product, backed by SUI, consists of real SUI tokens held in a regulated custodian environment by VanEck.
While these significant partnerships inspire “high expectations” for the network’s future and boost its token price, their impact on the network’s adoption metrics is yet to be seen.
Looking at daily active users and daily transactions, the figures remain similar to those in the summer of this year, indicating no substantial influx of users to the Sui network.
The DeFi TVL numbers show that despite a tenfold increase this year to $1.6 billion, much of this growth stems from the rise in SUI tokens rather than actual value transfers to its DeFi ecosystem.
Interestingly, the stablecoin supply on the Sui blockchain has remained steady at around $400 million, showing no significant growth this year.
The data indicate that Sui is still far from being a “Solana Killer.” While Solana has found its product-market fit through the meme coin craze, Sui still struggles to distinguish itself from numerous other chains.
Whether Sui will be able to meet the high expectations set by its esteemed investors remains to be seen. We will continue to Observe its progress.