Coinbase’s Ethereum layer-2 blockchain Base stopped producing blocks for 33 minutes connected Tuesday aft switching to a backup sequencer that wasn’t acceptable up decently to process transactions.
The incidental began astatine 6:07 americium UTC erstwhile the progressive sequencer started falling down connected artifact production, prompting Conductor — Base’s strategy for managing sequencer availability and reliability — to power sequencers.
However, it switched to an “unhealthy mainnet sequencer” that was inactive being acceptable up and frankincense wasn’t capable to nutrient blocks, Base Build’s X relationship said successful a station connected Tuesday.
Base creator Jesse Pollak said the halfway squad responded to the contented immediately, with the web afloat recovered by 6:40 americium UTC. A small much clip was taken to guarantee a chain reorganization wasn’t required, Base said successful its post-mortem.
Base is inactive highly centralized
The incidental exposes Base’s reliance connected centralized sequencers to grip transactions astatine scale. While aggregate sequencers run, they trust wholly connected Conductor’s absorption capabilities — creating a azygous constituent of nonaccomplishment that tin halt the full network.
The squad down Base, which presently secures much than $4.1 cardinal of full worth locked, said it would update its infrastructure to guarantee each sequencers successful the clump tin grip block-building responsibilities if selected.
Base’s lone other large web outage occurred connected Sept. 5, 2023 — soon aft its nationalist motorboat — wherever artifact accumulation was halted for 43 minutes.
Accountability taken by Base leader
Base’s caput of engineering, who goes by “aflock” connected X, said that Base takes concatenation uptime precise earnestly portion adding that it can’t “power a planetary system without a coagulated backbone of a network.”
“Proud of the squad for the speedy effect present and gladsome we've recovered respective ways to harden our systems going forward.”Base’s web outage bullish, apparently
Some crypto pundits viewed Base’s outage arsenic bullish, including erstwhile Coinbase technologist and Save Finance founder, 0xrooter, who said: “people lone marque a fuss astir downtime for chains with existent users.”
“Bullish downtime,” the pseudonymous developer added.
Helius Labs CEO Mert Mumtaz compared the incidental to Solana, different high-speed blockchain that has had its fair stock of web outages implicit the years.
Related: Ether ‘mega whales’ proceed buying done play dip
Despite the information challenges, Solana and Base stay among the astir utilized blockchains for retail users, boasting the archetypal and 4th astir progressive addresses astatine 2.83 cardinal and 1.09 million, respectively, DefiLlama data shows.
Solana is the second-largest concatenation by DeFi TVL astatine $9.6 billion, portion Base sits astatine sixth.
Magazine: Ether could ‘rip similar 2021’ arsenic SOL traders brace for 10% drop: Trade Secrets