Layer-2 Base Experiences First Outage Since Mainnet Launch

Incident Overview

Base, the layer-2 solution from Coinbase, halted transaction processing for over 45 minutes on the evening of September 5, 2023.

Details of the Incident

In the early hours of September 6, 2023 (Vietnam time), crypto users noticed that no new blocks were confirmed on Base for nearly an hour. Since its mainnet launch in early August, this appears to be the first technical glitch the layer-2 solution has encountered.

Base updated its status on its X (formerly Twitter) channel:

"We are currently identifying the cause of the block processing halt. Users may experience issues when submitting transactions. We will provide more information as soon as possible."

In a subsequent announcement, the project stated that they had patched the issue and partially resolved the problem, and new blocks were being generated again. However, the team still identified some vulnerabilities related to RPC. To date, no asset losses have been reported due to the incident.

Base's Performance and Challenges

Despite being a relatively new player, Base has been quite active recently. The platform has seen a rapid increase in user numbers, achieved a record Total Value Locked (TVL), and its daily transaction statistics are on track to surpass those of two prominent layer-2 solutions, Arbitrum and Optimism. Moreover, Base has become the third-largest layer-2 solution in the market, with a TVL of $408 million, thanks in part to the liquidity provision program on Aerodrome.

Source: DefiLlama (06/09/2023)

However, with fame often comes infamy. Base has been affected by several incidents, including the rugpulls of memecoins BALD, Frenstech (FRENS), and Magnate Finance, a surge in scam tokens, and exploits on LeetSwap and RocketSwap, which have somewhat dented the credibility of this young layer-2 solution.