Solana blockchain lags 30 minutes behind real-time, which may impact staking rewards and on-chain applications
Solana blockchain experienced a "mainnet block time drift" of approximately 30 minutes behind real-world time at 03:34 UTC on 5/26. The official statement mentioned that due to longer block production times, the chain's time was lagging behind real-time by around 30 minutes, without impacting the network's performance or operations. However, the displayed time on block explorers and Solana decentralized applications (Dapps) may not match real-world time.
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On 5/26 at 03:34 UTC, the Solana blockchain experienced a "mainnet block clock offset" of 30 minutes behind real-world time. The official announcement stated that due to longer block times, the chain's time was approximately 30 minutes behind actual time, but this did not impact the network's performance or operations. However, the displayed time on block explorers and Solana's decentralized applications (Dapps) may not align with real-world time.
The ideal block time slot for Solana is 400 milliseconds, but the average block time per hour before the deadline was 711 milliseconds, significantly higher than the ideal value, causing the discrepancy in chain time. Currently, the impacted parties are the network's validation nodes and stakers, as Solana's staking rewards are distributed at each time cycle epoch, with each epoch consisting of 432,000 slots. Therefore, with longer slots, the total staking rewards per year will decrease.
Developer @bertcmiller commented that while Ethereum's timestamp is defined by miners, in the long run, it still aligns with real-world time. However, it is uncertain how it will work on Solana and how it will be resolved. He believes that applications using timestamps, such as options and perpetual contracts, will be affected, leading to a chain reaction: protocol assumptions being broken, chain time discrepancies, and the economic disruption of applications.