Canto, the Layer-1 blockchain, has been down since Saturday. Yep, it’s been over two days, and the blockchain is still offline due to what the team is calling a “consensus issue.”
This essentially means the network couldn’t agree on some core operations, leading to a full-on freeze.
The native token, CANTO, took a nosedive, dropping 21% initially, but somehow managed to claw its way back up a bit as the weekend wrapped up.
Since its launch in August 2022, Canto has tried to carve out a space for itself as a permissionless, general-purpose blockchain geared towards decentralized finance (DeFi) applications.
It’s even compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), making it a bit more accessible to developers familiar with Ethereum.
Activity on the chain halts
According to data from Etherscan, three transactions managed to squeeze through on August 10, but after that, it’s been crickets. The last recorded block was 10847516, timestamped on August 11, and since then, nada.
The blockchain hasn’t processed a single transaction in over two days. The team behind Canto took to X (formerly known as Twitter) to admit that their precious chain was having a major issue. They stated that
“Canto chain is currently experiencing an issue with consensus that has caused the chain to halt.”
They also promised that a fix was coming in the form of an upgrade scheduled for Monday, August 12, at 12:00 UTC.
The good news? They swear that everyone’s funds are safe, and once the chain is back up, users can go about their business as usual. But of course, they’re saying that while the blockchain remains in its digital coma.
Just a couple of days before the crash, on August 9, Canto rolled out the Callisto upgrade. Now, here’s the kicker—no one knows if this upgrade actually went through or if it had anything to do with the current issue.
Before this whole debacle, Canto was actually enjoying a nice growth spurt. After launching last August, the blockchain saw its Total Value Locked (TVL) skyrocket to over $200 million by March this year.
This surge was largely driven by investors piling into various DeFi services like lending, staking, and liquidity provision.
