Coinbase-Backed Ethereum Network Base Recovers After Block Production Issue

Base, the Ethereum layer-2 network incubated by crypto exchange Coinbase, was down for more than two hours on Thursday due to an issue that affected block production. 

The issue first arose around noon ET on Thursday and came just hours before the network had a scheduled upgrade, according to the network’s status page. 

“Base Mainnet is currently halted while the team works on an issue with block production,” the network posted on X around 12:20 p.m. ET. “All funds are secure, and we’ll update below once resolved.”

Around 1:00 p.m. ET the network reportedly identified the issue, but it was not immediately resolved. 

“We continue to debug and have isolated a consensus problem that caused an invalid block to be sequenced,” the network posted on its status page. “This prevented new blocks from being created.” 

An hour later, the sequencing of new blocks began syncing normally, though the network was still working on finding a root cause to the issue. 

Thursday’s outage is the first block production and deposit issue on the network’s mainnet in the last 90 days, according to its status page. However, in May, the network reported around 30 hours of withdrawal delays. 

A representative for Coinbase did not immediately respond to Decrypt’s request for comment.

The network is still undergoing its Beryl hardfork upgrade, which will implement a new token standard for stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) on the network, while reducing withdrawal delays. 

Though blockchain outages are not common, they have plagued networks from time to time, impacting network activity in the process. 

Earlier this year, layer-1 network Sui suffered an outage on three consecutive days following gas and validator bugs on its mainnet. Prominent layer-1 network Solana also has a history of major outages, though it hasn’t reported a mainnet issue since February 2024.