Starknet STRK $0.0885 24h volatility: 0.4% Market cap: $446.17 M Vol. 24h: $63.96 M , a scaling network built on Ethereum ETH $3 155 24h volatility: 0.6% Market cap: $380.76 B Vol. 24h: $18.72 B , has been down for several hours with no clear recovery time.
The issue began with delayed blocks and later turned into a full halt of the network. While the team has confirmed it is working on the problem, transactions remain stuck and many decentralized apps are affected.
What Caused the Starknet Downtime?
Starknet downtime began earlier on January 5 when users noticed that new blocks were taking longer than normal to appear.
The first official sign came from the network status page at 09:53 UTC, which reported that Starknet was taking longer than expected to produce a block.
At that stage, the network was still running, but performance was already degraded.
Starknet is currently experiencing downtime and has been down for more than 2 hours. The team is actively investigating the issue and working to restore full functionality as quickly as possible. https://t.co/Z49f6eVYdP pic.twitter.com/wCKMCFzoCn
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) January 5, 2026
About 50 minutes later, the team shared another update. At 10:42 UTC, Starknet developers said they were debugging a mismatch between block execution and the proving system.
According to the update, some specific transactions were causing the issue. This hinted at a technical fault inside the core logic rather than a simple delay.
Shortly after, block production stopped altogether. Community members reported that no new transactions were being confirmed.
By midday UTC, the network had been effectively halted for more than two hours.
The official Starknet X account only posted once, acknowledging the downtime around 10:16 UTC, and has not shared further details up until publishing time.
At the time of writing, the status page still lists the incident as unresolved and under active investigation. There is no estimated time for recovery.
This downtime comes after Starknet reached over $365.4 million in total consensus value, with around $65 million in assets staked within six hours of the announcement.
Effects on Users and Broader Reaction
It is worth noting that with the downtime, the protocol has frozen activity across the network. Users cannot send transactions, and decentralized applications built on Starknet are unable to function.
This has caused frustration among traders, developers, and everyday users who rely on the network.
Meanwhile, on X, reactions range from serious criticism to humor. Some users shared memes, including parody posts from blockchain games, while others pointed to past outages.
Starknet mainnet just took another nap.
Engineers are “actively investigating,” which is tech-speak for “no idea yet.”
Not the first time either — last year’s downtime déjà vu still echoes.
The good news? STRK price refused to flinch. Blockchain drama with diamond hands.
— CeranosFinance (@CeranosFinance) January 5, 2026
It is important to state that several posts mentioned the September 2025 Grinta upgrade, which also caused a major disruption, raising concerns about reliability.
So far, the Starknet team has not released new public statements beyond the initial updates. Until block production resumes, the network remains at a standstill, and users are left waiting for clarity on when normal operations will return.
Benjamin Godfrey is a blockchain enthusiast and journalist who relishes writing about the real life applications of blockchain technology and innovations to drive general acceptance and worldwide integration of the emerging technology. His desire to educate people about cryptocurrencies inspires his contributions to renowned blockchain media and sites.
