Coinbase’s Base Network Records First Outage After Its Launch In August

Coinbase’s newly launched layer-2 network, Base, has encountered a significant issue for the first time since its public launch on August 9. According to information on the Base status site, block production unexpectedly stopped for 45 minutes on September 5. 

However, the team behind the platform acted to fix the problem after identifying the issue at 9:36 PM UTC. According to the site, all systems are operational, and block production has resumed. 

Meanwhile, the team revealed that part of the internal Base infrastructure needed refreshing, which caused the glitch. The team noted:

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,

In addition, the team said they will continue monitoring the Base chain to identify and fix further issues. 

Base’s Network Glitches Raise Questions About Its Robustness

Coinbase’s Ethereum-based Layer 2 network encountered another challenge on August 30, before its public launch. The team behind the platform noticed some Bridge transactions were not displaying on the page due to a technical outage on Basescan.

Before this event, the Base status site showed issues on August 24 and 25. On the former, the Team received reports of transaction pool leakage from some Remote Procedure Call (RPC) node providers.

Again, the Team quickly implemented a fix, but the network recorded withdrawal delays on August 25. According to the Team, the issue was due to delays from Coinbase.com. It did not impact the Base bridge and mainnet. The Coinbase’s Layer 2 team fixed the problem the same day, and withdrawals resumed.

While the team was proactive in fixing the issue, the reoccurrence of network glitches on the layer-2 protocol raised eyebrows about its reliability and robustness. 

Notably, Matt Willemsen, the head of research at Collective Shift, a crypto education platform, commented on the development. Willemsen outlined the potential risks of using Ethereum-based layer-2 networks instead of the Ethereum mainnet. 

Willemsen noted that Ethereum-based L2s, like OP Mainnet, Arbitrum One, zkSync Era, or Base, are less robust than the Ethereum mainnet.

Coinbase’s Layer 2 Network Records Uptick In Activity

Meanwhile, according to reports, Base has been recording an uptick in transaction and network activity, even briefly surpassing Ethereum on August 21. 

According to leading DeFi analyst Thor Hartvigsen, as of August 18, Coinbase’s layer 2 network recorded more daily transactions than Optimism and Arbitrum combined. 

Data shows that Base has recorded a 48.64% increase in Total Value Locked (TVL), but its Transaction Per Second (TPS) is down 4.22%. However, speculations are high that the Friend.Tech Frenzy is fueling this activity uptick.