Sui goes down twice in 48 hours as v1.72 upgrade bug halts transactions twice on mainnet

The Sui blockchain went offline twice within 48 hours after a bug introduced in its v1.72 software upgrade caused validators to stop processing transactions, costing the network nearly six hours of downtime in the first incident alone and triggering a second stall less than a day later.

The outages temporarily prevented validators from finalizing transactions, affecting users, decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, and NFT activity across the ecosystem.

According to the Sui team, the disruptions were caused by a gas accounting issue tied to the newly introduced Address Balances feature, which interacted unexpectedly with existing gas fee logic during critical network processes known as epoch transitions.

The issue prevented validators from reaching consensus on the next network state, leading to stalled transaction finality.

Impact of the v1.72 upgrade

The first outage occurred on May 28, when validators stopped processing user transactions after the deployment of the v1.72 upgrade.

According to Sui’s status updates, the network remained offline for approximately five hours and 55 minutes before operations resumed following a coordinated validator software upgrade.

Less than a day later, the network stalled again during an epoch transition, a process that updates the blockchain’s operational state.

Sui later confirmed that both incidents stemmed from the same underlying software issue involving the interaction between Address Balances and gas accounting mechanisms.

“Activity on Sui mainnet has resumed after a halt due to a crash bug in the gas charging logic introduced by the 1.72 release.” Sui Network, official statement shared following restoration efforts.

The network said the initial fix deployed after the first outage served only as an interim measure and failed to fully eliminate the bug, allowing the issue to reappear during the subsequent epoch transition.

Traders and DeFi users feel the effects

Although no loss of user funds was reported, the outages disrupted a wide range of on-chain activities. Token transfers slowed or stopped, DeFi transactions were paused, and NFT-related operations could not be completed while the network remained stalled.

According to market data cited by Cryptopolitan, the SUI token traded around $0.91–$0.92 during the disruptions, representing an intraday decline of approximately 7% to 8%. Trading activity also increased as investors responded to the uncertainty surrounding network operations.

The outages highlighted a key concern for investors and DeFi users: transaction finality. When blockchain networks are unable to process transactions in a timely manner, trading strategies, lending protocols, and other financial applications can face operational risks.

“Sui Mainnet is currently experiencing a network stall. The Sui Core team is actively working on a solution.” — Sui Network, in an official network status update.

Reliability questions return for Sui

The latest disruptions mark Sui’s second major network incident of 2026.

Earlier in January, the blockchain experienced a separate consensus-related outage that lasted roughly five to six hours after validators encountered issues validating new checkpoints.

While the January and May incidents involved different technical causes, both required coordinated intervention from validators before normal operations could resume.

Following the second outage, Sui confirmed that the network had returned to normal operation after validators implemented an emergency fix.

The team also said it plans to publish a full post-incident review detailing how the Address Balances feature interacted with gas accounting during epoch transitions and what changes may be required to prevent similar failures in the future.

For crypto investors, the incidents serve as a reminder that network performance remains a critical metric alongside ecosystem growth, adoption, and token price performance.

As developers complete their post-mortem review, market participants will be watching closely to determine whether the latest fixes are sufficient to restore confidence in the network’s long-term stability.