Solana congestion: Is a weekend recovery on the cards for the network?

• Anza comes with a solution for the ongoing congestion issue on the Solana network. 
• Amidst growing speculation, Solana dropped by 7% in the past week. 

April 2024 has not been in favor of Solana [SOL] so far, with its price moving sideways on the daily chart. This consolidation phase coincided with recent congestion issues on the Solana network, which began on the 4th of April.

During this period, over 75% of Solana transactions failed, highlighting the strain on the network’s capacity.

While developers were targeting 15th April for a fix, Anza, a prominent player in the Solana ecosystem, has taken some steps to address the issue. 

Steps taken to fix congestion issues

According to Anza’s post on X (formerly Twitter), the team has identified the root cause of the congestion issues, attributing them to a QUIC implementation and the behavior of the Agave validator client. Providing solutions, the post noted, 

“@Solana testnet validators, the v1.18.11 release is now deployed to devnet, recommended for use on testnet. Please upgrade ASAP to help us start analyzing the effects of the proposed congestion fixes.”

However, it’s important to note that while the Agave upgrade is significant, it is currently limited to the testnet and not the mainnet, ensuring a controlled environment for testing and optimization. 

By rolling out this update, Anza hopes to mitigate the congestion and improve the overall performance of the Solana chain.

Explaining the reason behind this recent deployment, Rex St John, a renowned developer at Anza noted,

“The process is that the congestion patch gets tested a bit before going on mainnet, I’m told usually once it goes out on mainnet it takes like ~2 days to reach supermajority of validators.”

This indicates that before implementing a congestion patch on the main Solana network, it undergoes testing on a smaller scale, typically on testnets or development networks. 

What lies ahead for Solana? 

Concerns stemming from network congestion have cast a shadow over market sentiment towards SOL.

An analysis conducted by AMBCrypto using Santiment’s data revealed that the fifth-largest cryptocurrency has been subject to a higher volume of negative commentary compared to positive sentiment in the past week.

This wave of pessimism has manifested in a notable 7% decline in SOL’s price over the same period.

However, at the time of writing, the altcoin experienced a slight surge of 0.12%  in the weekly chart, settling at $171.8 indicating the arrival of bullish sentiment for Solana in the coming days.