Degen Chain, a layer-3 blockchain platform, suffered a significant outage lasting two days, resulting in a halt in network functionality and the associated applications. The outage caused substantial disruption as the network failed to produce a block for more than 53 hours, rendering the network and its applications unusable.
The block explorer for Degen Chain revealed that the network stalled at 8:15 p.m. UTC on May 12, which marked the last produced block.
The cause of the outage was identified as a configuration error. Degen Chain utilizes the Ethereum layer-2 chain, Base, for settlement, and the AnyTrust protocol for data availability functions. In collaboration with its development partner, Conduit, a rollup infrastructure platform, Degen Chain traced the issue to a “custom config change” that affected both Degen Chain and the gaming network Apex, resulting in a halt in block production.
To restore service and minimize the impact on users, the nodes for Degen Chain are currently undergoing resynchronization from the genesis block, the network’s first block. Conduit, along with both teams and Offchain Labs, is actively working towards the restoration process.
Degen Chain experienced downtime, directly affecting various decentralized applications hosted on the blockchain, including DegenSwap, Mint Club, and the bridging service Relay Bridge. As a result, the native DEGEN token witnessed a notable decline of 24% from its seven-day high on May 13.
This incident has sparked renewed debates in the cryptocurrency community regarding the viability and value of layer-3 networks. Polygon CEO Marc Boiron has previously criticized L3 networks, claiming that they only exist to divert value from Ethereum onto the L2 networks they are built upon. He argues that L3s are unnecessary for scaling and may compromise Ethereum’s security.
On the other hand, proponents of layer-3 solutions, such as Patrick McCorry from the Arbitrum Foundation, believe that they are beneficial as they utilize layer-2 networks as settlement layers, resulting in cheaper transactions.
Despite the recent outage, Degen Chain has seen increased activity, with nearly $100 million in transaction volume. Since its inception, it has recorded over 272,000 unique transactions and has created over 7,500 contracts and 2,300 tokens. However, it is worth noting that some of these tokens have been associated with rug pulls and scams.
