The Terra (LUNA) network recently experienced a significant increase in transaction activity, resulting in network congestion, preventing some users from making transactions. This was confirmed in a recent statement by Terra developers.
The Cause of Network Congestion on Terra is a User Making Spam Transactions to Get Overcharges
According to the developers, the event involved around 3 million gas per mint, several bot accounts, and an “inscription” token that required some actual user participation for mint. Since Terra's block gas limit was 100 million, the token mint contract, which required approximately 3 million gas per mint, could fill a block with approximately 33 transactions. According to the developers, this sudden increase in activity caused congestion by clogging up the available block space.
Developers stated that no Terra validators were penalized during the coin minting process. According to the statement, Terraform Labs (TFL) Core Team responded quickly to the situation by implementing two separate solutions.
First, the team worked closely with Terra validators to deter spam by temporarily increasing the minimum gas fees required to process transactions. Secondly, the TFL Main Team has rolled out a patch to Terra validators that does not break the network consensus. This step significantly improved user experience and network performance by reducing the number of invalid transactions in a given block.
The intention of the creator of the spam token contract in question remains unclear. However, it is thought that the developers may have tried to earn fees by trying to take advantage of Terra's recent implementation of the FeeShare module. This module redistributes a portion of the fees generated by Terra smart contracts to contract owners.
Terra is exploring a dynamic charging model to alleviate similar issues in the future and avoid manual intervention during high network congestion, the developers said.
*This is not investment advice.