Ethereum’s Linea Aims for Decentralization After Block Production Halt

Ethereum’s Layer-2 Solution Linea Promises Greater Decentralization After Halting Block Production

Linea, Ethereum’s zkEVM solution designed to improve scalability with over $1 billion in locked value, recently faced scrutiny after manually stopping block production to censor a hacker’s address. The hacker had exploited Linea-based decentralized exchange Velocore for $7 million.

According to a statement from the Linea team, “Because other avenues of handling this exploit closed, our team halted the sequencer to prevent additional funds from bridging out. This was the last resort action to protect users on Linea.”

The team confirmed the suspension of block production, explaining, “it was not a decision we took lightly. One of the key drivers in our decision to pause the sequencer was that the hacker had acquired and was beginning to sell a large sum of tokens into ETH. This would have created other issues in the ecosystem for users beyond the liquidity pool draining exploit.”

The pause in block production, spanning a critical hour between block 5,081,800 and 5,081,801, allowed Linea to assess the situation. During this period, efforts were made to engage with the Velocore team and coordinate responses to the vulnerability.

Stopping block production with over $1.2B in assets on the Linea chain. You’re calling it decentralization? Lmaoo.

The move, however, raised concerns among the crypto community. Questions were raised about the decision to block the whole network, which holds over $1.2 billion in value, as per data from L2Beat.

Linea acknowledged its current reliance on centralized technical operations, highlighting the need for ongoing efforts to transition towards a fully decentralized, censorship-resistant network. Despite this incident, Linea emphasized that its core values are a “permissionless” and “censorship-resistant environment.”

Both Linea and Velocore teams have initiated measures to address the exploit. These measures include on-chain negotiations and coordination with centralized exchanges to freeze the exploited funds. The Velocore team has also released a detailed post-mortem on the exploit, outlining the affected pools and ongoing efforts to compensate affected users.

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