- Polygon’s zkEVM is facing downtime due to issues with its blockchain sequencer, sparking speculation within the crypto community while Polygon assures users it’s actively resolving the problem, with reassurances that the issue is confined to zkEVM and doesn’t affect other chains deployed using the Polygon CDK.
- This incident echoes recent network outages, notably Solana’s, emphasizing the ongoing challenges in maintaining stability in the blockchain space despite advancements in scaling solutions.
Polygon, the renowned Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution, is currently grappling with downtime on its zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM) due to an issue with its blockchain sequencer. While this setback has raised eyebrows within the crypto community, Polygon assures its users that it’s actively addressing the problem.
In a recent announcement, Polygon revealed that its zkEVM is encountering downtime specifically linked to issues with its blockchain sequencer. However, the platform sought to allay concerns by specifying that this problem is isolated to the zkEVM and does not affect any other chain deployed using the Polygon chain development kit (CDK).
“The issue only impacts Polygon zkEVM (which is the only rollup) and does not impact Polygon PoS, Polygon CDK, or any chain that has deployed using Polygon CDK,” Polygon stated in their announcement.
The core of the issue lies in the blockchain sequencer, responsible for organizing and consolidating transactions into batches before relaying them to the Polygon zkEVM smart contract on Ethereum’s main network. Polygon emphasized its commitment to resolving the issue promptly and pledged to release a detailed post-mortem statement once the matter is resolved.
Amidst this downtime, members of the crypto community have taken to platforms like X to express their concerns and speculations. Questions regarding the prolonged network downtime have surfaced, with some users highlighting the apparent silence surrounding the issue.
One user, 0xngmi, questioned the lack of discussion, stating, “why is nobody talking about how Polygon zkevm has been down for 10h and is still down?” Meanwhile, Mirza.inj expressed surprise at the outage, asking their followers why “Polygon zkEVM was down for over 10 hours, and no one said anything.”
This incident comes on the heels of other significant network outages in the crypto space, notably Solana’s prolonged downtime in February. Solana, a prominent blockchain network, experienced block production halting for over five hours before validators managed to restart the network. This marks another instance in recent times where major blockchain platforms have faced operational challenges.
Polygon launched the zkEVM to its mainnet beta in March 2023, with the aim of enabling developers to deploy smart contracts with enhanced finality and reduced costs. This move was hailed as a step towards scalability, with Polygon claiming that the open-source zkEVM facilitates decentralized applications to scale through transaction batching, thereby unlocking superior performance.
As Polygon continues to work towards resolving the zkEVM downtime, the incident serves as a reminder of the challenges inherent in maintaining the stability and functionality of blockchain networks, even amidst the ongoing advancements in the crypto space.
