🌎 TON Blockchain Faces Outages Amid DOGS Memecoin Frenzy

The TON blockchain experienced two significant outages within 36 hours due to an unexpected surge in transaction volumes caused by the sudden popularity of a new memecoin called DOGS. This heavy traffic overwhelmed the network, raising concerns about its capacity to handle high volumes of activity and overall stability.

TON Blockchain Outages Linked to DOGS Memecoin

The first disruption occurred on 27 August 2024, when block production halted at 23:00 UTC and did not resume until 05:30 UTC on 28 August, resulting in a six-hour downtime. The second disruption began on 28 August 2024 at 19:19 UTC and lasted over four hours.

Block Production Issues

Block production issues began at 19:19 UTC, primarily due to the heavy load from DOGS token minting. TON Core is actively working on a solution to address these issues.

Both outages were triggered by the overwhelming demand generated by the DOGS token, leading to a massive increase in transaction volume. In just 48 hours, TON processed 20 million transactions, overwhelming the system and causing the blockchain to break. The DOGS memecoin, inspired by Telegram’s mascot Spotty, launched a large airdrop that caused congestion. The heavy load from token minting further strained the network during the second disruption.

Validator Challenges

Several validators struggled to clean the database of old transactions, making it difficult to remove outdated data effectively. This inability to clean up the database led to a loss of consensus among validators, as they couldn’t process new transactions correctly or maintain synchronized records of the blockchain’s state.

Scalability Challenges

The scalability challenges faced by the TON network, similar to many blockchain networks, are particularly related to sharding. Sharding involves splitting the network into smaller parts called “shards.” Each shard handles a portion of the overall transactions, which helps the network process more transactions simultaneously.

However, shards need to communicate with each other to stay in sync. For instance, if one shard processes a transaction that affects data in another shard, the two shards must exchange messages to update their records accordingly. This communication ensures that all shards have the correct and up-to-date information.

During periods of low activity, this communication works fine. However, during high traffic, when many transactions occur simultaneously, the number of messages exchanged between shards increases dramatically. Processing all the messages becomes overwhelming for the network, leading to delays, slowdowns, or even failures in keeping the shards synchronized. As a result, the system struggles to handle the volume of communication required to maintain smooth operation.

Execution Isolation and Appchains

The concept of execution isolation offers a more efficient solution. Instead of constantly communicating between different parts of the network (shards), execution isolation allows each part to handle its own transactions independently. This reduces the need for constant back-and-forth communication, which can slow things down during high activity periods.

Appchains, also known as application-specific blockchains, take this idea even further. They are specialized blockchains designed for specific tasks or applications. By focusing on just one type of activity, appchains can manage traffic more effectively and avoid issues that arise from trying to handle everything on a single network. Examples of appchains include Polkadot Parachains, Cosmos Zones, Near Protocol Sharded Chains, Polygon Supernets, and Avalanche Subnets.