Kraken’s Ethereum layer 2 blockchain Ink is currently plagued by technical problems, which have caused disruptions all over the network and forced users to endure delays and failed transactions, as well as wonder about how long it would take for the system to get back to full capacity.
The disruptions stated in a recent update on X by the developers of the blockchain highlight a chain-wide outage, being experienced in addition to network instability.
Furthermore, they also cautioned users to expect ongoing problems with transactions, among others, as engineers try to sort things out. Bridging was among the activities likely to be affected during this time.
According to Ink, the disruption appears to be linked to issues involving Gelato, one of the network’s key infrastructure partners.
Gelato provides automation, relayer and transaction execution services that help support activity across multiple blockchain ecosystems. Ink said it is actively investigating the root cause alongside Gelato and plans to publish a detailed post-mortem report once the issue has been fully resolved.
Ink outage disrupts cross-chain asset transfers
Users trying to move assets between networks have been affected by the outage. Transaction processing and bridging activity has been among the hardest hit, with the team warning that transfers could be delayed or fail altogether until stability is restored.
Bridging is a critical function for many users as it allows assets to move between different blockchains, and so reliability is particularly important at times of network stress.
As of now, there has been no information released by the Ink team on when things will go back to normal, but users have been advised to keep track of announcements as the engineers continue fixing the problem.
Ink outage comes amid growing adoption of the Ethereum L2 Network
The attack happened at an important time for Ink, considering its status as an emerging member of the Ethereum scaling ecosystem.
The network uses the OP Stack framework developed by Optimism and is considered a member of the Optimism Superchain. Having received backing from Kraken, Ink was developed as a blockchain geared towards DeFi use cases and on-chain wealth management with lower fees compared to Ethereum mainnet.
The network has seen impressive growth in a short amount of time since its launch. In early 2023, Ink crossed the $500 million mark of TVL based on data provided by DeFiLlama, signaling that the project has found increasing adoption among users and developers.
Still, despite its success, the recent disruption serves as a reminder of the greatest challenge facing blockchain projects as they scale-that is, maintaining reliability despite increasing complexity and usage.
Outages in the blockchain sector are fairly common, particularly among younger or growing chains. But even so, they can easily shake user trust, especially since they affect the basic functionality like transfers and bridging.
Although there is no threat to the funds themselves, delays are certainly going to cause trouble for those users that are awaiting their transactions to be confirmed or their assets to be transferred to another network.
The crypto community has certainly expressed their concerns through these outages. On X, messages have varied from support and encouragement to the Ink team to dissatisfaction from users that have been waiting for withdrawals or slow confirmations and transfers. Users have commented about the long confirmation times of normal transactions, as well as the ability of the chain to handle widespread use.
The same has happened more recently in another case involving Sui, where multiple outages occurred in just 48 hours, towards the end of May.
According to the firm, the reason behind these outages was issues in implementing the long-term solution, and operations have since returned to normal, although a detailed report is yet to be released.
Despite the issues affecting Ink, Kraken’s core exchange platform appears to be operating normally. The firm has not posted any alerts concerning the primary trading services offered by the platform, and the problem is limited to the Ink blockchain platform itself.
For those who own tokens stored on Ink, the incident highlights the fact that although blockchain technology has advanced quite a bit, there is still more work to be done.
While the situation persists, users are being told to pay close attention to their bridge confirmations and communicate through the official channel.