In response to recent network congestion issues on Solana, the Solana Foundation has identified a combination of factors contributing to the problem. According to Austin Federa, the strategy lead at Solana Foundation, the congestion stems from both high demand for Solana block space and delays in implementing patches related to the networking stack.

In an exclusive interview with Cointelegraph during Paris Blockchain Week, Federa shed light on the efforts being made to tackle the congestion affecting user transactions on Solana. He emphasized that while the Solana project aims to create the world's fastest network, achieving this goal is complex and occasionally prone to engineering challenges.

Federa noted that while Solana's consensus layer continues to function as intended, there's consensus within the foundation that the network's user experience falls short of expectations. Despite processing approximately 700 transactions per second, the network requires further optimization at its core protocol level.

Efforts are underway to address bottleneck issues in specific components of Solana's networking stack implementation. However, Federa acknowledged that the timeline for implementing upgrades did not align with the network's actual demand. He described this discrepancy as a "failure of success," attributing it to the overwhelming demand for Solana's block space.

While Federa acknowledged criticisms of Solana's network outages over the past two years, he also pointed out that other protocols, including Ethereum layer-2s, have faced similar challenges. He compared the current state of emerging blockchain networks to the early days of Amazon Web Services, suggesting that occasional outages are part of the growth process.

Despite ongoing challenges, Federa emphasized the importance of striving for 100% uptime in the blockchain industry. He highlighted Solana's beta label as a reflection of the network's evolving nature and the need for continued development and improvement.

Solana recently released version 1.17.31 for general use by mainnet validators, aiming to alleviate ongoing congestion on the network. This update contains enhancements designed to improve Solana's performance and address the issues contributing to network congestion.