The THORChain network shuts down due to a software bug

Cross-chain exchange and network proof-of-bond THORChain was shut down earlier today due to a bug that caused “non-determinism between individual nodes.”

The THORChain team initially tweeted around 8 p.m. UTC that developers were aware of a chain outage and were working to determine the root cause of the problem.

Approximately four hours later, the team issued another update, stating that “consensus halts in a distributed state machine are caused by non-determinism between individual nodes and prevent the ledger from becoming corrupted.”

It stated that the next steps were to find the source of the non-determinism, release an update, and restart the state machine, and while step one was nearing completion, there have been no updates since, implying that the developers are having a difficult time.

The network appears to be halted at the time of writing, according to THORChain Explorer. However, token swapping platform THORSwap issued its own update, stating that its platform is still operational.

The update says,

“Update on the current halt of THORChain Swaps/LP. Funds are safe. Ethereum and ERC-20 swaps are fully functioning on ThorSwap via DEX Aggregator. Hang tight, THORChain devs are on the case!”

The incident had no effect on THORChain infrastructure developers Nine Realms, as it suggested that ironing out bugs is just part of the process of improving the THORChain network.