Linea, Ethereum's layer-2 solution aimed at enhancing scalability with over $1 billion locked in value, has vowed to prioritize greater decentralization in the wake of a controversial decision to manually halt block production. The move was intended to thwart a hacker associated with an attack on the Linea-based decentralized exchange Velocore, which resulted in the loss of $7 million.

Amidst scrutiny over its decision-making process, Linea's team took to an X thread on June 3 to address the situation, emphasizing that the decision to pause block production was not made lightly. The primary motivation behind the action was to prevent the hacker from further exacerbating the situation by selling a substantial amount of tokens for Ethereum, which could have led to additional ecosystem disruptions beyond the initial exploit draining liquidity pools.

The pause in block production, spanning a crucial hour between blocks 5,081,800 and 5,081,801, provided Linea with the opportunity to assess the situation and coordinate responses with the Velocore team. Despite this, the move sparked concerns within the crypto community, particularly regarding the impact on the network, which holds over $1.2 billion in value according to L2Beat data.

Acknowledging the criticisms, Linea underscored the necessity of transitioning towards a fully decentralized, censorship-resistant network. While the incident highlighted the project's current reliance on centralized technical operations, Linea reaffirmed its commitment to fostering a permissionless and censorship-resistant environment.

In tandem with efforts to address the exploit, Linea and Velocore teams have initiated measures such as on-chain negotiations and collaboration with centralized exchanges to freeze the exploited funds. Velocore has released a post-mortem detailing the affected pools and ongoing efforts to compensate affected users, demonstrating a proactive approach to mitigating the impact of the attack.

Moving forward, Linea's pledge to prioritize decentralization underscores the project's commitment to enhancing security and resilience in the face of emerging threats, while ensuring the integrity and stability of the ecosystem for all stakeholders involved.