Dash Blockchain Encounters Major Stall During Hard Fork; Delays Activation to June 14th

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Dash, the privacy-focused blockchain, encountered a 13-hour-long outage on Monday morning. The incident happened during the activation of its Dash Core v19 hard fork, as the blockchain stopped processing new transactions and producing new blocks.

Samuel Westrich, Chief Technology Officer of Dash Core Group, confirmed the same through a tweet. He said, “There was a problem during the v19 activation of Dash Core. The chain is stalled and currently not producing blocks. We have everyone investigating the issue.” On the other hand, while the chain was down, Dash developers also released a bulletin mentioning that blocks and transactions that are not secured by ChainLocked and InstantSend (Dash’s proprietary security features) might not be achieving finality.

We've continued to investigate over the last ~8 hours. We've identified a few issues and are working on a fix. We will have a hot fix release in the near future. There are two options we are investigating, and everyone is focused on promptly resolving this issue. (1/n)

— Pasta (@DashBoost_Pasta) May 22, 2023

Following the event, cryptocurrency exchange, Binance announced a temporary suspension of DASH mining rewards. In an official statement, it wrote, “Due to the situation following v19 activation of Dash Core, the Dash (DASH) network has temporarily paused the production of new blocks. As such, Binance Pool will temporarily suspend the distribution of DASH mining rewards until the network resumes block production.”

Why Did Dash Stall During the Hard Fork Activation?

Last month, Dash announced a hard fork (version 19) update, mentioning that it would help improve network security with BLS signatures, ensure better implementation of high-performance master nodes, and improve wallet functionalities, along with regular bug fixes. Dash confirmed that it will incorporate a brand new version of the master nodes after the hard fork activation. The new version will also ensure that unsuccessful transactions are re-processed within a one-hour window as opposed to the existing 24-hour delay.

However, as things unfolded, the recent hard fork turned out to be an unsuccessful attempt. Several Reddit users initiated a conversation on the DashPay Reddit page. The discussions suggest that the Dash blockchain split into two halves during the implementation of the hard fork. This chain split resulted in some nodes moving beyond the fork block while the others stuck to their original formation. Data from Dash’s block explorer also suggests a similar outcome.

Dash developers have now delayed the hard fork activation to have enough time to investigate the issue and identify the exact reason behind the stall.

Way Forward for Dash

Approximately 13 hours after the Dash blockchain malfunctioned, developers issued a fix. The developers announced an official update and documentation on Github that will resolve the issue. While the update is mandatory for all users, this will delay the hard fork activation to 14th June 2023. Following this, Dash developers tweeted, “This release should resolve the chain stall once a sufficient number of master nodes and miners have upgraded. Please be aware of the known issues listed in the release announcement. A reindex may be needed.”

At the same time, Allnodes confirmed, “#Allnodes has successfully updated DashPay Masternodes to version 19.1.0. No action is required by our users. This is a hotfix aimed to fix the chain halt and delaying v19 hard fork until June 14, 2023.”

#Allnodes has successfully updated @Dashpay Masternodes to version 19.1.0. No action is required by our users. This is a hot fix aimed to fix the chain halt and delaying v19 hard fork until June 14, 2023.

⚙️ Release: https://t.co/vsLrTmxMnQ
ℹ️ Highlights: https://t.co/clbP50BE6V https://t.co/SDEa2fgyYR pic.twitter.com/CMT6JckRO4

— Allnodes (@Allnodes) May 22, 2023

An excerpt from the GitHub announcement mentions, “The start date for the v19 Hard Fork has been delayed until June 14th. The earliest hard fork date will be roughly two weeks after that date. A new version will be required before this date to ensure a smooth hard fork.”

However, at the time of penning this piece, data from Dash’s block explorer suggests that its last block was processed more than 33 hours ago.

About Dash

Dash was launched way back in 2014 and was originally branded as XCoin. It was initially hyper-focused on privacy and anonymity. However, over the years, Dash has expressed interest in venturing into other tenable use cases. For example, while it continues to be privacy-focused, it also aims to develop capabilities to enable regular transactions as a full-scale digital currency.