Layer-2 Network Base Stumbles: Coinbase's First Major Outage Since Launch

Since its highly anticipated public launch on 9 August, Coinbase's Ethereum layer-2 network, Base, encountered an unexpected challenge — the network's inaugural major outage.

For a period spanning 43 minutes early this morning, the Base chain experienced a notable disruption, with no new blocks being generated during this time. This unforeseen incident was promptly identified by the network's developers, who pinpointed the "stalled" block production at 9:36 pm UTC (today at 5.36am in Singapore), as reported on the Base status site. Fortunately, block production has since resumed, restoring the network to normal functionality.

This occurrence raises important questions about the resilience and reliability of Ethereum's layer-2 networks when compared to the battle-hardened Ethereum mainnet.

As Matt Willemsen, Head of Research at the crypto education platform Collective Shift, aptly points out, these layer-2 networks are still undergoing their baptism of fire.

In response to a query on the outage, Coinbase pointed out, “We identified a delay in block production due to part of our internal infrastructure requiring a refresh. We’ve implemented a fix and are seeing widespread recovery.”

Base said that “the issue has been identified…no funds are at risk” and it is continuing to monitor the chain for further issues.

But despite witnessing a "widespread recovery" scenario, a persistent concern tied to remote procedure calls (RPCs) introduced a substantial delay in the issuance of an official "all-clear" report. This delay extended the investigation process to a duration of 90 minutes before conclusive findings could be presented.

The Outage that Ensued

The occurrence witnessed today marks a significant milestone in the operational history of Base. This is the first notable technical disruption that the platform has encountered since its inception.

In the wake of this outage, itis intriguing to observe the multitude of comparisons being drawn between Base and other blockchain solutions in terms of their respective stabilities.