The recent disruptions to the TON blockchain, caused by the surge in transactions related to the DOGS memecoin, have raised concerns about the network’s capacity and stability. The unexpected spike in activity overwhelmed the system, leading to two significant outages within 36 hours.
On August 27, 2024, block production on the TON blockchain came to a halt at 23:00 UTC and remained offline until 05:30 UTC the following day, resulting in a six-hour downtime. The situation worsened on August 28, with another disruption starting at 19:19 UTC and lasting over four hours. Both incidents were directly linked to the popularity of the DOGS token, which saw a massive increase in transaction volume.
The DOGS memecoin, inspired by Telegram’s Spotty mascot, initiated a large airdrop that caused congestion on the network. The heavy load from token minting exacerbated the situation during the second disruption, overwhelming the system with a staggering 20 million transactions processed in just 48 hours.
One of the key issues during these outages was the inability of validators to clean the database of old transactions effectively. This resulted in a loss of consensus among validators, impacting their ability to process new transactions accurately and maintain synchronized records of the blockchain’s state.
The scalability challenges faced by the TON blockchain, particularly with sharding, were brought to the forefront by these incidents. Sharding, a technique used to split the network into smaller parts (shards) to process more transactions, requires efficient communication between shards to stay synchronized. However, during high traffic periods, the volume of messages exchanged between shards can overwhelm the network, leading to delays and failures.
To address these issues, the concept of execution isolation offers a more efficient solution. By allowing each part of the network to handle transactions independently without constant communication between shards, the system can better manage high traffic periods. Additionally, appchains, or application-specific blockchains, focus on specific tasks or applications to effectively manage traffic and avoid network overload.
In conclusion, the recent disruptions on the TON blockchain highlight the importance of addressing scalability challenges and implementing efficient solutions to handle high transaction volumes. By exploring concepts like execution isolation and leveraging appchains, blockchain networks can enhance their capacity and stability in the face of increasing demand.