Coinbase Layer-2 Base Suffers First Major Outage Since Launch

On Sept. 5, a ‘Base chain stall’ was reported on the network status tracker.

At 21:36 UTC the tracker reported that it was investigating a stall in the production of blocks.

“Users may have issues submitting transactions,” it stated before adding that it was actively investigating the issue.

Around 20 minutes later it had identified the issue and started applying a bug fix. By 22:09 UTC it stated,

“We have deployed a fix and are starting to see recovery of block production and gossip.” Gossip refers to node-to-node exchanges of state information.

Base Chain Fixed

However, there were lingering issues with remote procedure calls (RPC) on mainnet. By 23:06 UTC, 1.5 hours after the initial outage, the team reported “We have verified recovery of network health and RPC APIs.”

A few hours later, the team reported the incident blaming it on internal infrastructure.

“Earlier today we had a delay in block production due in part to our internal infrastructure requiring a refresh.”

The issue has been identified and remediated and no funds are at risk, it added.

It is the first major outage since Base Mainnet went live in mid-July.

Head of research at crypto analytics firm Collective Shift, Matt Willemsen, pointed out that using Ethereum layer-2 networks is not the same as using Ethereum mainnet, “which is more battle-tested and involves fewer trust assumptions.”

Just like Solana, Base was touted as another ‘Ethereum killer.’ It has seen its first outage and, just like Solana, it is unlikely to be the last.

Coinbase’s Base chain just had its first major outage, lasting for 43 minutes. Blocks have just started to be produced again.

Another reminder that using Ethereum L2s (e.g. Arbitrum One, OP Mainnet, zkSync Era, Base) is NOT the same as using Ethereum mainnet, which is more… pic.twitter.com/JbUNQUGNwu

— Matt Willemsen (@matt_willemsen) September 5, 2023

Base Growth Impressive

However, despite this minor setback, Base’s growth since launch has been impressive.

Late last month, Base announced native support of Circle’s USDC. It has also integrated with Ledger Live, 1inch, and the PancakeSwap DEX.

However, it has also been a magnet for scammers and fake tokens, as reported by CryptoPotato.

According to DeFillama, Base TVL is $409 million. This ranks it above Cronos, THORChain, and Cardano for this metric.

Moreover, L2beat reports that the optimistic rollup-based network is now the fourth largest layer-2 network having surpassed dYdX, Starknet, and Loopring.