- Coinbase’s Layer 2 network, Base, experienced a 30-minute block production halt, disrupting core functions like deposits and withdrawals. The issue was an “unsafe head delay”, but the team fixed it quickly.
- The outage occurred amid a sharp rise in network activity, with new token launches on the Base App surging to around 50,000 by month-end, outpacing Solana in token creation.
- This was only the second outage for Base, which now holds a significant US$13.6 billion in total value locked (TVL), giving it a massive role in Ethereum’s scaling stack.
Base, Coinbase’s Ethereum layer‑2, went offline early Tuesday in its first recorded outage in several years.
It wasn’t exactly chaotic, as it only lasted for about 30 minutes when the network stopped producing blocks and froze core functions including deposits, withdrawals and flashblock operations. The incident is a good reminder that blockchain networks can not always run 24/7, 365. Networks like Solana and Sui have suffered multiple outages as well.
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The disruption began at 06:15 UTC and was traced to what Base described as an “unsafe head delay”, a condition that prevents new blocks from being confirmed. By 06:43 UTC, the team had flagged the fault publicly, and within a minute reported that it was fixed. Monitoring was put in place to ensure stability.
Base has only faced one other halt since launch, a 45‑minute stoppage in September 2023. Its role in Ethereum’s scaling stack has grown sharply since then.
The network now holds US$13.6B (AU$21B) in total value locked (TVL), according to L2Beat.
Network Grows Amid Increase in Token Launches
The halt comes amid a sharp rise in Base activity, even outpacing Solana in number of tokens created, as per data from Dune Analytics.
Last month, the network relaunched its app as the Base App, integrating Zora and Farcaster to support a growing decentralised social and creator economy. The expansion has driven heavy on‑chain activity, with new token launches climbing from 6,649 at the start of July to roughly 50,000 by month‑end, as per data from The Block.
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