[News] Recently, many users have reported that transactions on Solana have frequently failed. What is going on? 😯

First of all, we must understand that transaction failures do not necessarily mean that there is a problem with the network. In fact, about 92% of failed transactions are due to the failure of on-chain robots to perform arbitrage transactions, rather than transactions by real users. These robots will send a large number of spam transactions to Solana because the cost of sending spam transactions is negligible compared to the rewards brought by successful arbitrage.

However, Solana's recent congestion problems mainly stem from "undelivered transactions". These transactions failed to reach the "block leader" and were discarded due to problems in the network layer. The network layer is the communication layer of the Internet, which is used to send data packets between different connections.

Solana has just recently upgraded QUIC as its network layer, which helps to establish connections between users and "block leaders". However, the problem is that even though "block leaders" can now limit certain connections, the logic of "which connections to limit" is poorly implemented and flawed. This makes it increasingly difficult for ordinary users to establish connections and complete transactions.

Currently, teams such as Firedancer, Anza, and Solana are working hard to fix the network layer, and some major patches are said to be launched in the next few weeks. However, this does not completely solve the problem, and Solana still has a long way to go in the future. For example, there is no guarantee that the current fixes will be effective in preventing Solana from having congestion problems next time. Only when they are actually applied can we know how effective they are.

What do you think about this? Feel free to speak your mind in the comment area and discuss the future direction of Solana together!