Solana Mining Protocol Ore Pauses Operations Due To Congestion

Hardhat Chad, a pseudonymous contributor to Solana-based protocol Ore, posted on X recently informing his followers of the decision to halt the outfit’s mining project due to increased Solana congestion.

Ore Mining Intensity Adds To Congestion Woes

The developer believes that this decision would be in favor of Solana and Ore community members. Hardhat Chad is also convinced that this would be the fastest path forward to v2, which is expected in the coming weeks. It appears that the introduction of Ore mining may have worsened the Solana congestion.

I have decided to pause all mining, effective immediately.

I believe this action to be in the best interests of Solana, Ore holders, and the fastest path forward to v2.

🧵

— Hardhat Chad (@HardhatChad) April 16, 2024

Noteworthy, the Ore project launched about two weeks ago, and Chaofan Shou, a PhD student at the University of Berkley posted about how he earns $10,000 daily from mining ORE. Immediately, it caught the attention of the Solana community as they began to mine the token. The surge in interest and mining triggered more transactions on Solana further contributing to the network’s congestion woes.

Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko had thought that ORE forking can play a part in helping to solve the menacing congestion issues. Therefore, he shared an open proposal to anyone who wants to fork ORE as a means to stress test the network. 

The sole aim was to generate enough traffic through the interest it would generate, a move that can tackle the challenge of network congestion that the blockchain has been experiencing. 

Shou introduced ORE as a token built on Solana but it typically uses a mining system as a means for claiming the tokens. His setup hinges on bloXroute and Jito Bundles, and the lucrativeness of the venture appears as something Yakovenko believes forking it for a more mainstream embrace will be appealing to all.

Alternative Solutions To Tackle Solana Network Congestion

The new development suggests that forking ORE is not the solution that Solana needs to control the frequent network congestion. There are other methods that Solana is looking to explore. Two days ago, Solana released v1.17.31 update for mainnet beta validators to fix congestion issues in the network. 

According to Solana, the release contains “enhancements which will help alleviate the ongoing congestion on the Solana Network.” 

On one hand, there is Stake Weighted Quality of Service (SWQoS) which will serve as a Sybil/spam discrimination engine, providing global protection against spam activities. It is a utility that the Solana network has been thinking of implementing since the occurrence of the frequent congestion. 

With the suspension of Ore mining, Solana is likely picking one of these alternative options to complement the mainnet congestion fix launched earlier.