Stacks, a Bitcoin layer 2 network, experienced an outage for 9 hours last week, leaving user transactions and blocks unprocessed for that entire period. Stacks Status, the official X account for the network’s updates, mentioned the cause was due to block reorganization (reorgs) on the layer 1 Bitcoin network and its miners behaving unexpectedly.
“We are experiencing a delay in Stacks block production due to unexpected mining behavior and a Bitcoin reorg. Core developers in the ecosystem are investigating the issue and working to resolve it as quickly as possible. Thank you for your patience & understanding.” The account further posted, “Core developers in the ecosystem are investigating the issue and working to resolve it as quickly as possible.”
Bitcoin reorgs are an infrequent phenomenon on the Bitcoin network during which mined blocks are invalidated, and new blocks get added instead. While that may only pose limited hurdles to networks like Stack, the extended outage happened because of unexpected miner behavior. In other words, numerous miners had not updated their software after the reorg. So, a combination of these factors caused Stacks to remain inactive for 9 hours.
Consequently, Stacks’ native asset, STX, took a considerable hit, dropping in value by 12% to reach about $1.90. Moreover, many users could not move their value or use the numerous dApps on layer 2. Stacks allows developers to launch dApps, NFTs, and more while using the security of Bitcoin. It is a smart contract network on Bitcoin network, addressing the blockchain’s smart contract incompatibility.
Muneeb Ali, Stacks’ co-founder, stated that a new upgrade to the Stacks blockchain will prevent such outages even during reorgs and unexpected miner activity on the layer 1. The Nakamoto upgrade will come soon – it was originally scheduled for late spring but will see light in August due to necessary fixes.
“This type of block slowness is not an issue in Stacks Nakamoto new consensus (as no forks). That’s why Nakamoto has been the sole focus for dev activity,” Muneeb posted.
