Panic: Base blockchain goes down for 19 minutes
Base experiences its first major network outage, in the middle of a growth phase.
Base is experiencing its first major network outage, right in the middle of a growth phase. The production of new blocks paused completely for 19 minutes.
On August 5, the Base chain View post on X. From block height 33,792,704, no new blocks were produced after 8:15 CET. It marked the first significant outage since the network launch, a major test for stability amid rapid growth.
The outage occurred during a period of massive token inflation. In late July, Base launched more than 54,000 new tokens daily, surpassing Solana. The rapid expansion, with 1.6 million launches, 3 million traders, and about $470 million in trading volume since launch, is putting pressure on the infrastructure and consistency.
Coinbase said the halt was due to a planned update of internal infrastructure. The fix was deployed within 30 minutes; no user funds were at risk. Industry experts note that Base and other layer 2 networks don’t offer the same robustness as the Ethereum mainnet. The outage recalls earlier downtime moments for Solana, which has crashed several times over the years.
Base was launched by Coinbase in 2024 and has grown into one of the fastest-growing Ethereum layer 2 networks. Through integrations with platforms like Farcaster and Zora, Base became the leading infrastructure for the creator economy and recently even surpassed Solana in daily token launches.
The Shopify Payments integration makes it possible to settle USDC payments worldwide via Base for the first time, with no extra technical hurdles. A key signal toward the mass market. JPMorgan is using Base for deploying the JPMD deposit token, making digital deposits globally usable. Together with PNC Bank, Coinbase is also building a crypto-as-a-service trading channel for large U.S. financial institutions.
