TLDR
- A consensus failure caused Base blockchain to halt operations for approximately two hours Thursday afternoon
- The network processed an invalid block that stopped subsequent block creation entirely
- Normal block production resumed around 6 pm UTC as infrastructure began syncing across the ecosystem
- Jesse Pollack, Base’s creator, assured users that no funds were at risk during the incident
- The network downtime occurred just hours ahead of the planned Beryl upgrade, which deployed successfully later that evening
Coinbase’s Base blockchain, a prominent Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution, experienced a significant service disruption Thursday when a consensus malfunction led to the processing of an invalid block, bringing all network transactions to a standstill for close to two hours.
[[LINK_START_0]]https://twitter.com/buildonbase/status/2070226214858707218?s=20[[LINK_END_0]]
The initial warning surfaced at 4:03 pm UTC when Base’s monitoring dashboard indicated block production had entered an “unhealthy” state. Approximately 78 minutes later, at 5:21 pm UTC, developers pinpointed the culprit: a consensus malfunction that allowed an invalid block to enter the sequence, creating a barrier that prevented the network from generating any additional blocks.
Recovery was announced shortly before 6 pm UTC, with Base confirming that block production had returned to “normal operations” and that infrastructure across the entire ecosystem was successfully synchronizing. The team committed to publishing a comprehensive post-mortem analysis detailing the incident.
Node operators received guidance to restart their Base nodes to ensure proper synchronization with the recovered network. Base’s internal nodes were verified to be syncing appropriately following the restoration.
No Financial Risk, Full Investigation Underway
Jesse Pollack, the architect behind Base, took to X (formerly Twitter) to calm user concerns, confirming that every user’s assets remained completely secure during the network halt. He characterized the disruption as unacceptable and pledged that his team would leverage lessons from this incident to strengthen Base’s capabilities as an infrastructure for “global, 24/7 finance.”
The specific technical cause behind the invalid block has not been fully disclosed by Base. Whether the issue originated from a software defect or another form of consensus breakdown remains unclear pending the detailed post-mortem report.
This marks the second notable disruption for Base. The network previously went offline in August 2025 for approximately 33 minutes. Thursday’s incident represented a considerably longer interruption at nearly two hours in duration.
Network Upgrade Deployed Following Recovery
The timing of the outage was particularly notable, occurring mere hours before Base’s scheduled Beryl network upgrade, originally slated for 6 pm UTC. Despite the earlier disruption, the upgrade proceeded as planned and reached completion around 8 pm UTC.
The Beryl upgrade was designed to decrease withdrawal processing times on the network while introducing an innovative token standard tailored for real-world assets and stablecoin implementations.
Base has not suggested any connection between the two incidents. They appear to have been independent events occurring on the same day.
As the most actively utilized Ethereum layer-2 scaling network, Base’s downtime Thursday represented an unusual occurrence for a blockchain platform of its scale and adoption level.
For context, layer-1 blockchain Sui encountered two consecutive daily outages in May, both triggered by network updates that carried known minimal probabilities of inducing system halts.
Base’s engineering team has committed to ongoing network stability monitoring and will release additional updates as their investigation progresses.
The successful deployment of the Beryl upgrade later Thursday evening signaled the network’s restoration to standard operating conditions.
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