zkSync Era Network Bug Causes Block Production Halt

zkSync Era developers took to X (formerly Twitter) to announce the blockchain was encountering network issues, promising users that teams are working to resolve problems “as swiftly as possible.”

Later on, they posted an update, saying the issues were resolved and the network was fully operational.

The zkSync Era network is now fully operational. At 05:50 UTC, one of the network’s automated safety protocols was triggered by a bug in the server. This issue required teams to inspect and is now fully resolved.

We will share a full post-mortem report soon. Thank you for your…

— zkSync Developers (∎, ∆) (@zkSyncDevs) December 25, 2023

zkSync Era Experiences Network Issues Briefly

As reported by Chinese crypto news journalist Colin Wu, zkSync Era blockchain’s browser indicated that the project’s mainnet was facing network issues, making the developers suspend block production for a few hours.

Per zkSync Era’s network status browser, the blockchain hasn’t recorded any downtime incidents despite the developer’s announcement on X. However, during the period of network issues, the website showed the mainnet had a “major outage.”

According to zkSync Era’s developers, the issue was caused by a bug that triggered an automated safety protocol embedded in the network. The protocol’s unprecedented activation bred the need for teams to investigate what happened.

Just over a week ago, the zkSync Era protocol halted transactions for over an hour after suspending block production, with analysts citing network congestion as the primary cause. zkSync’s team noted a problem with the block explorer, although analysts reckoned the network had an overwhelming number of transactions exceeding $5 million.

Layer 2 protocol Arbitrum also experienced a block production halt, reportedly caused by a similar transaction block explorer issue.

Security Still Up Despite Network Problems

During the inception of the zkSync Era protocol, the creators of Matter Labs emphasized security as “the most critical aspect of launching zkSync Era to the public.” The protocol supports network mechanisms like the practical Byzantine fault tolerance (pBFT) and delegated Proof-of-Stake (DPoS).

However, blockchain security audit startup ChainLight outlined a network vulnerability on zkSync Era that, if exploited, could lead to almost a $2B loss. That said, since the blockchain uses zk-rollups technology to compute transactions off-chain, the exploit is highly unlikely.

At press time, zkSync Era had a TVL of $159.06M, recording a 24-hour trading volume of over $100M, per DefiLlama data. Furthermore, according to DefiLlama, zkSync has recorded the highest inflow values over the past day with $9.6M, beating Ethereum and Arbitrum, which recorded $8.4M and $6.7M, respectively.