Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol dYdX experienced an unexpected halt in block production following a scheduled upgrade of its chain on April 8. The outage was confirmed by dYdX, and engineers are currently working to identify and debug the issue. The incident has been ongoing since 6:50 a.m. UTC, and a fix is not expected for several hours. This represents the first major outage for the protocol since the launch of dYdX version 4 and its standalone Cosmos blockchain on the mainnet in October. The team is working with validators to discuss potential solutions without risking penalization for being offline during the chain restart.
Despite the completion of the scheduled maintenance, block production on the dYdX Chain failed to resume. As of the latest update, the blockchain explorer platform Nodes Guru indicates that no new blocks have been produced since the scheduled upgrade five hours prior. The investigation is still ongoing, and a resolution is not expected until later. dYdX mentioned convening with validators to discuss potential solutions without risking penalization for being offline during the chain restart. The incident does not appear to have impacted the price of dYdX’s token, which is up over 4% in the past 24 hours, according to CoinmarketCap.
The incident began with a scheduled protocol upgrade on April 8 at 5:30 am UTC, during which dYdX issued a status report informing users about the upgrade and potential disruptions in dYdX Chain functionalities. However, despite completing the maintenance, block production did not resume on the chain. The protocol upgrade aimed to introduce advancements such as order book features, risk and safety improvements, and enhancements related to Cosmos integration. dYdX launched its dYdX Chain in October 2023, allowing DYDX token holders to transfer funds from the Ethereum network to the new platform, expanding its utility.
In response to increasing trading activity within the protocol, dYdX community authorized the staking of $61 million in treasury tokens on the liquid staking protocol Stride on April 6. This move aims to address the growing trading activity within the protocol. Data from DefiLlama shows dYdX’s total value locked on-chain at $504.48 at the time of writing, with the network generating over $48.59 million in fees over the past twelve months. dYdX made the decision to migrate from Ethereum in early 2022 due to concerns over the network’s scalability issues.
The dYdX team is actively investigating the ongoing issue with block production on the chain and is working with validators to find a solution. The incident remains under investigation, and a resolution is not expected until later. This outage represents the first major setback for the protocol since the launch of dYdX version 4 and its standalone Cosmos blockchain on the mainnet. Despite the disruption, dYdX continues to focus on enhancing its protocol and expanding its utility for users.
