THORChain Resumes Operation After 20-hour Outage

User funds were not impacted after the Cosmos-based blockchain halted due to a software bug.

AccessTimeIconOct 27, 2022 at 7:55 p.m. UTC
Updated Oct 28, 2022 at 5:39 p.m. UTC
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THORChain – a blockchain in the Cosmos ecosystem focused on providing cross-chain liquidity – resumed operations on Friday after halting as the result of a software bug.

THORChain’s development team initially tweeted that it was aware of an outage on Thursday, noting that developers “identified the likely cause due to a unique transaction type (nothing to do with solvency).”

In an email to CoinDesk on Friday morning, a representative for THORChain said "[a]s of 10:20 AM (ET) on Friday, the network pause has been lifted and THORChain mainnet is once again producing blocks. Trading will remain paused until the outbound queue has been cleared. Once all pending outbound transactions have been processed, trading will be resumed."

"The issue was found to be caused by a combination of cosmos.Uint string in memo handling and how splitting the swap queue across blocks larger than a certain size occurred," the representative wrote.

Chain halts are atypical for most blockchains; reliability and consistent uptime is generally cited as a key advantage of decentralized networks over centrally controlled alternatives. THORChain's outage lasted for around 20 hours, in total.

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Sam Kessler

Sam is CoinDesk's deputy managing editor for tech and protocols. He reports on decentralized technology, infrastructure and governance. He owns ETH and BTC.


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