Solana Developers Roll Out Software Update to Tackle Network Congestion

Solana developers have released a new software update, version 1.17.31, which is now recommended for general use by mainnet validators. This update aims to tackle the congestion issues caused by the surge in meme coin trading activity on the network.

The v1.17.31 release is now recommended for general use by MainnetBeta validators. This release contains enhancements which will help alleviate the ongoing congestion on the Solana Network.

— Solana Status (@SolanaStatus) April 15, 2024

The Solana team recently released the first update in a series of planned releases to address the network congestion that has plagued Solana in recent months. The meme coin craze fuels Solana’s network congestion, driving user activity and demand surge. Transactional volumes reached as much as $4 billion in March, a substantial increase from the usual figures of under $500 million daily in 2023.

Moreover, the new update prioritizes transactions from “good” validators, or those with a sizeable stake, to a node leader, mitigating the issue. This approach ensures that validators with a higher stake receive a higher quality of service, preventing lower-quality validators from maliciously flooding the network with transactions.

Validators tasked with securing the blockchain network and confirming transactions must regularly update their nodes to the latest releases. This ensures they can address any issues arising when the network is running.

In addition to version 1.17.31, Solana developers are currently testing version 1.18 on a testnet. This network mirrors the main blockchain to detect and fix bugs and issues before deploying updates to the mainnet.

“The v1.17.31 release is now recommended for general use by MainnetBeta validators,” Solana developers stated in an X post. “This release contains enhancements which will help alleviate the ongoing congestion on the Solana Network.”

Update Marks Start of Solana Network Overhaul

According to Rex St John, head of developer relations at Anza, the company responsible for rolling out Monday’s update, version 1.17.31 is just the beginning. It’s part of a series of planned updates to address the network’s congestion issues.

.@Solana MainnetBeta validators: the v1.17.31 release is now recommended for general use. This patch contains enhancements which will help alleviate some of the ongoing network congestion, and will be followed by further enhancements in v1.18.

Please upgrade when there's less…

— Anza (@anza_xyz) April 15, 2024

Moreover, the network has identified trading bots as a major contributor to the spike in ‘failed’ transactions. Solana developer @0xMert previously explained on X that these “fails” refer to instances where a smart contract flagged certain transactions as a “bad request.” The Solana network successfully received and processed these transactions.

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