Starknet Halts Mainnet for Over Two Hours Due to Bug

Starknet, an Ethereum layer-2 network powered by zero-knowledge rollups, halted mainnet operations for more than two hours early Monday due to a proving bug, disrupting transaction processing and reigniting concerns about the platform's stability as it heads into 2026.

The outage began just before dawn, when the network's systems detected an error in the proving mechanism for a pending transaction, preventing new blocks from being produced. Users were unable to submit or finalize transactions during the downtime, which stalled activity across decentralized applications, wallets, and smart contracts. On-chain data showed the network frozen at a certain block height, with engineers quickly investigating to ensure chain integrity. The team traced the issue to a software bug and, after conducting tests to verify the error's scope, reverted the chain to block 5,187,263 to restore consistency. Block production resumed shortly after, though Starknet noted that some early-morning transactions may not have processed fully during the restart.

In a post on X, the Starknet team confirmed the disruption, stating that engineers were actively investigating and working to restore full...