Starknet, Ethereum’s Layer-2 scaling solution, faced a 3-hour outage after its Grinta upgrade, its second major downtime in two months.
Author: Sahil Thakur
Published On: Wed, 03 Sep 2025 04:42:32 GMT
Starknet, Ethereum’s seventh-largest Layer-2 network, faced a downtime for nearly three hours on Tuesday, marking its second major outage in under two months. The disruption follows the deployment of the Grinta upgrade (v0.14.0), a major milestone aimed at decentralizing the protocol.
The outage lasted 2 hours and 44 minutes, beginning around 2:23 AM UTC. Starknet’s sequencer, responsible for ordering and processing transactions – failed to function, halting block production entirely.
All transactions between block 1,960,612 and 4:36 AM UTC were lost and must be resubmitted, following a full chain reorganization. This rollback effectively erased an hour’s worth of blockchain activity.
Grinta had introduced core architectural changes, including a revamped sequencer, mempool logic, and a redesigned fee structure, all aimed at improving decentralization.
The incident follows a 13-minute stall in July, which was previously the network’s most significant disruption. Two back-to-back outages have intensified scrutiny over whether high-performance Ethereum scaling solutions can maintain both speed and operational resilience.
Starknet currently holds over $548 million in total value locked, according to L2Beat data. Its growing ecosystem and rising ambitions make operational stability critical to long-term adoption.
By early Tuesday morning, the Starknet team confirmed that the network had returned to full functionality.
“Block production is back to normal. Most RPC providers are up-and-running,” the team stated on X. “Transactions submitted during the outage were not processed and must be resubmitted.”
The team pledged to publish a detailed post-mortem in the coming days, covering the timeline, technical root cause, and prevention measures.
The outage comes shortly after Starknet’s governance community approved SNIP-31, a proposal to integrate Bitcoin staking. The network is positioning itself as a future-proof L2 with multi-chain interoperability and modular architecture.
But the Grinta incident highlights a broader risk: complex upgrades, even those aimed at decentralization can expose critical weaknesses during rollout.
Whether Starknet can balance innovation with stability may define its role in Ethereum’s scaling roadmap going forward.
Loading chart...
This downtime on the starknet network is not the only major blockchain that has faced issue in 2025.
Project | Date / Period | Duration | Key Cause / Notes |
---|---|---|---|
Starknet (L2, Ethereum) | September 2, 2025 | ~2 hr 44 min – 4 hours | Sequencer failure due to Cairo0 code incompatibility after Grinta v0.14 upgrade |
TON (The Open Network) | June 2025 | ~40 minutes | Masterchain dispatch queue error; resolved via validator patch |
Polygon zkEVM | 2025 (unspecified date) | ~12 hours | Sequencer failure caused by Ethereum chain split |
Polygon PoS | July 30, 2025 | ~1 hour | Validator exit bug in Heimdall layer; RPC and explorer outages |
Solana | Various (Q1 2025 noted) | Multiple events, some up to 13 hours | Not officially acknowledged; third-party monitors flagged RPC/API degradation |
Real voices. Real reactions.
@Starknet That's one way to kick off starktember
@Starknet What did those 8 users do to cause the crash? Watch Pornhub on Starknet with ZK encryption?
@Starknet See ? We really are the new solana !
Our Crypto Talk is committed to unbiased, transparent, and true reporting to the best of our knowledge. This news article aims to provide accurate information in a timely manner. However, we advise the readers to verify facts independently and consult a professional before making any decisions based on the content since our sources could be wrong too. Check our Terms and conditions for more info.