Following the implementation of the Dash Core v19 hard fork, the Dash blockchain experienced a block generation halt that lasted for more than twenty hours. On May 21, Samuel Westrich, the Chief Technology Officer of Dash, a blockchain platform that prioritizes privacy, announced on Twitter that the platform had ceased operations and was unable to produce blocks due to an issue that arose during the v19 activation process.
Several hours later, the developers reported that they had detected a few problems and were actively working on resolving them. We are currently balancing the requirement to sustain block formation with the aspiration to address these concerns. According to a recent tweet by “Pasta,” a Dash developer, it is not safe to assume that blocks and transactions on the Dash network without ChainLocks and InstantSend seals possess genuine finality.
The Dash network is safeguarded against 51% of attacks by the ChainLock feature, and immediate remittances are made possible through InstantSend. Around 13 hours following the block generation cessation, developers issued a patch that is expected to address the chain halt once an adequate number of masternodes and miners have completed the upgrade. The initial upgrade to v19 will be deferred until June 14, as per the provisional release. As per the statements made by developers on a Dash subreddit forum, it seems that the issues have resulted in the division of the blockchain into two separate variants.
There was a problem during v19 activation of Dash Core. The chain is stalled and currently not producing blocks. We have everyone investigating the issue. I will continue with updates on Twitter as we have more information.
— Samuel Westrich (@SamWestrich) May 22, 2023
As per the statement of Reddit user “xkcdmpx,” approximately 10% of the network has advanced on a fork, however, the majority of users consider this chain as unauthorized. Postponing the primary hard fork will grant developers supplementary time to resolve the fundamental problem and ascertain the reason for the cessation of the chain.
The distribution of DASH mining rewards by Binance will be temporarily suspended until block production returns to normal, as per the announcement made by the company. At the time of writing, the Dash blockchain explorer has reported a lack of new entries being produced by the network for a duration of 20 hours and 33 minutes.
