Stellar Blockchain Faces Outage as Some Validators Go Offline

The Stellar blockchain is currently facing a serious network outage due to an unknown bug.

Bitstamp Halts Stellar XLM

According to Stellar’s official update, an unknown technical glitch has caused some important validators to drop off the network.

As of 13:26 UTC, Stellar Development Fund (SDF) engineers are busy investigating the technical issues that caused the validators to drop off.

As validators are currently offline, the blockchain is unable to process new blocks.

The block explorer shows that the network processed its last transaction six hours ago.

“At this moment, we are unable to provide ETA for a fix,” the update says.

Meanwhile, crypto exchange Bitstamp has temporarily halted deposits and withdrawals of XLM, Stellar’s native token, due to ongoing issues.

Since the outage news, its token price has taken a hit, coming all the way from ~$0.57 to ~0.49 at press time.

We’ve temporarily stopped $XLM deposits and withdrawals due to issues on the @StellarOrg network. We are monitoring the situation and will keep you updated. Stellar’s status page: https://t.co/iL7a31OgaL

— Bitstamp (@Bitstamp) April 6, 2021

The incident has been unprecedented for Stellar–a blockchain worth $11 billion that hosts several crypto projects, including the second-largest stablecoin USD Coin (USDC).

Blockchains depend on complex encryption and continuous sync among validators to keep the network running; Stellar is no different. However, small software bugs may cause sporadic disruptions.

In December 2020, Solana, a proof-of-stake blockchain, faced an outage as an unknown software error prevented validators from confirming new blocks.

Note: This is a developing story and will be updated with new information.