Paradex rollback timeline: database migration error leading to large-scale liquidation, concerns over centralized risk exposure in Perp DEX

On January 20th, Starknet ecosystem Perp DEX Paradex announced a temporary maintenance. When the scheduled maintenance was completed and the protocol was still not online, community rumors spread that a major vulnerability had been discovered. Some users’ perpetual contracts were forcibly liquidated due to abnormally high funding rates. Paradex officials announced around 15:00 that the system was interrupted due to database maintenance/migration issues (including abnormal BTC price zeroing out and triggering a large number of forced liquidations), and the chain state would be rolled back to block 1604710 (UTC 04:27:54), which is the state before database maintenance and the last known correct state. Paradex’s official website resumed operation at 20:13 yesterday evening. The crypto community questioned and criticized the Paradex rollback on a large scale, and the “reliability” of on-chain DEXs was challenged, especially regarding the security of L2 architecture Perp DEXs and whether they are truly decentralized. Some community opinions believe that Perp DEX may have been a “wrong product form” from the beginning, and in extreme scenarios, centralized control often reappears under the guise of “system repair.” Chase.skr, a member of the Solana community, received widespread support for his view that Solana’s more decentralized validator set ensures that the chain has never rolled back, updated, or shut down without permission due to hacking or fund forks. Consensus is necessary; centralized control of blockchains is harmful. Whether the “D” in DEX is truly decentralized is worth reconsidering.