A decentralized solution that is not that much? – Arbitrum is a second layer solution running in parallel with the Ethereum Main Chain (ETH). The beta version of the project was deployed last September. Therefore, there are many points of centralization in this one, a fact that many investors learned the hard way over the weekend.
Arbitrum goes offline and worries its users
Like Arbitrum is a second layer solution, it offers an ecosystem similar to that of Ethereum, without face up to same costs transaction. This is based on rollup technology, more precisely the optimistic rollups.
On Sunday January 9, many users were frightened. Indeed, for several hours, the Arbitrum network found itself offline. Impossible for users to make any transaction. A critical situation which alerted the community.
“I’m worried because right now I can’t do the transactions I want to do, and that’s a weird thing to say in an environment that is supposedly permissionless and censored. There is no explanation for what happened. I guess it has to do with the high volume of transactions during the crash, but I really don’t know. “
A surfer on Reddit
A few hours later, the Arbitrum teams finally formalized the problem on Twitter.
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Blame it on a point of centralization, really?
Later in the day, after relaunching the network, the Arbitrum teams published a blog post discussing the problem encountered. Often times, when a system like Arbitrum stops working properly, its most centralized module has failed. And that’s exactly what happened in this specific case.
So, as explained in the first tweet, then in the Medium post, Arbitrum encountered a problem the level of Sequencer module.
As a reminder, the Sequencer is the Arbitrum module in charge of managing transactions and creating blocks. Currently, the Sequencer is just a node hosted by the Arbitrum teams. In other words, this one represents a centralization point.
A point of centralization? Strange for a so-called decentralized solution. Indeed, it may seem confusing. However, Arbitrum One, the version currently online is only a beta version of the project. Therefore, this point of centralization is known to all and should be decentralized in the months future.
“Arbitrum aims to decentralize its Sequencer nodes to avoid this central point of failure in the future. “
JoeR on Discord
In total, 284 transactions have been accepted by the Sequencer before it goes offline. These could then be processed as a priority by the module when it was restarted. Since then, the entire Arbitrum network has been successfully relaunched and block production has been able to resume.
As the team pointed out in their post, the Arbitrum network is designed to last, despite the shutdown of the Sequencer:
“We would like to stress that Arbitrum is a second layer network on Ethereum, and that the network is designed to withstand even permanent Sequencer failures by relying on Ethereum to process transactions. “
Arbitrum publication
Anyway, expect to encounter other similar situations in the future. Although funds may be inaccessible during this time, they remain highly secured by the underlying network, namely Ethereum.
Obviously, Internet users could not help but compare this mishap to the many turbulences encountered by the Solana network (SOL) in recent months. In fact, on January 4, the network once again found itself offline, following a new DDoS attack… and it is still suffering episodically this week.
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