Arbitrum One Sequencer Stalled, Users Impacted
The Arbitrum One Sequencer came to a standstill at 10:29 AM ET following an unexpected surge in network traffic. The team is working diligently to resolve the issue and aims to provide a post-mortem analysis promptly.
As multiple Twitter users indicated, Arbiscan, a blockchain explorer for Arbitrum, initially attributed the network failure to a surge in inscription activities. However, the website has since adjusted its language to mirror Arbitrum’s official statement, removing the mention of inscriptions.
Inscriptions gained popularity through Bitcoin Ordinals earlier this year. They involve intricate images or other forms of media engraved into cryptocurrency denominations. While processing inscriptions is resource-intensive, it made sense for the Bitcoin network, which lacks smart contract capabilities and cannot support NFTs.
However, some users have started creating inscriptions on networks already capable of supporting NFTs. Last week, inscriptions on the Polygon, BNB Chain, and Avalanche blockchains accounted for 57% of traffic across these networks, according to blockchain analyst Hildobby.
It is worth noting that inscription transactions constituted 30% of all traffic on Arbitrum One specifically in the past week, as revealed by data from Dune Analytics.
Several users expressed their frustration with the notion that inscription-related traffic led to Arbitrum’s outage, deeming the innovation both excessively costly and lacking a practical purpose.
Arbitrum Partially Restored with High Transaction Fees
At present, Arbitrum has partially restored functionality, allowing Arbiscan to record real-time transactions on the network once again. On the Arbitrum website, Offchain Labs updated the network’s status from “partial outage” to “experiencing partially degraded performance.” The company acknowledges the ongoing technical issue contributing to high transaction fees.
However, Offchain Labs has yet to publicly disclose the exact cause of the issue that prompted Arbitrum’s initial shutdown.