The blockchain-based social network Steemit went down yesterday for almost nine hours. During the outage, the official Steem website returned a server error, and various Steem-based dApps were non-functional. The blockchain itself was also frozen, with several nodes listed as stuck. The Steem Network acknowledged the problem on Twitter:
We’re aware of the problem with the #Steem #blockchain and are hard at work to get it resolved. We’ll post updates here as they happen.
— Steem (@SteemNetwork) September 17, 2018
Several hours later, the Steem Network indicated that the platform would soon be functional once again, and the site is now back online.
Status update: Witnesses are coming back online and producing blocks. Network is becoming more stable. We’re working on getting our node back online with a fix. #steem #steemit
— Steem (@SteemNetwork) September 17, 2018
No Cause Identified
The exact cause of the outage is unknown. The Steem Network has stated that the platform was not hacked and that funds are safe. It is unclear whether the outage was connected to the hard fork upgrade that is currently underway, but the Steem Network has implied that the two events are unrelated. It may be some time before a full explanation is given.
Users on Twitter are, to say the least, surprised that the outage happened. Although blockchains often slow to a crawl if they are subject to high traffic, blockchains are typically resilient against complete outages. Even if the network is in no state to carry out transactions or publish new articles, various nodes can supply the data for viewing.
As such, it is unclear why Steemit did not leave up an archived version of the site. Steemit has several nodes that can supply data, many of which were online throughout the interruption. Some third party block explorers, such as SteemDB, were functional and could be used to view Steem posts during the outage.
Suggested Reading : Learn more about blockchains here.
Was the Price Affected?
Around the time of the outage, the price of Steem spiked to $0.77. Over the next nine hours, the price fell by approximately 9% to $0.70. However, it seems unlikely that the spike is part of a long term trend. One Reddit user notes that the brief spike “could possibly be due to disabled deposits/withdrawals” and that the price is “following the general trend again.”
Steem’s price has been on a slight decline, even prior to yesterday’s events. Nevertheless, an outage so close to a vital update could reflect badly on the platform. Luckily for Steemit, none of its competitors took the opportunity to promote themselves during the platform’s absence.
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