The Base Network, a second layer (L2) of Ethereum developed by Exchange Coinbase, experienced August 5 today First total detention event since its launch in August 2023. The interruption occurred at the height of block 33,792,346 and extended for approximately 30 minutes.
The ruling was reported by users in the social network X, who noticed that the base network, which processes the blocks on average two secondshe had stopped producing them.
The block 33,792,346 contained 723 transactions and used 91.23% of its Limit gas (gas limie), an indicator that, similar to the block space in Bitcoin, Measure the maximum amount of computational resources allowed by block in Ethereum and its L2 as a base.
He Limit gas represents the top of “gas”, the unit that pays for operations in the Ethereum ecosystem, and 91.23% indicate that the block was almost to the maximum of its capacity before the interruption, what could be an indication of the congestion suffered in the network.
In contrast, the previous blocks averaged 200 operations with a use close to 40% of the Limit gasreflecting a lighter load, while the blocks after the arrest only registered 1 operation, suggesting a drop in demand by users after the failure.
According to the web Status basethere were 28 minutes in which block production, withdrawals, deposits, and Flashblocks (a functionality of this network to process blocks more quickly).
The blocks following 33,792,346 registered only 1 transaction and, only 44 minutes later, at the height of the block 33,793,679 The operation of the chain created by Coinbase was normalized.
Minutes after the start of the incident, a notice was published in that web: “The main base network is currently paralyzed.”
Subsequently, the technical team presented a Preliminary report of the incident announcing that the cause of the detention was a “delay in the insecure header.”
This expression refers to a delay in synchronization between components of the main node of the network, which can prevent the validation of new blocks.
In this case, it was identified that four of these components suffered a simultaneous fall, which caused the temporal stagnation of the chain.
The basic technical team solved The problem at 06:44 UTC, and, according to base scan, seven minutes later, at 06:51, resumed The normal production of blocks from 33,793,679, which contained almost 100 operations.
So far, an official statement was not issued by Coinbase or the base developer team with detailed explanations about the technical cause of interruption or on future preventive measures.
Finally, the detention based on Nor was the use of your applications possibleas highlighted by that ecosystem. Such was the case of the Decentralized Exchange (Dex) Dackieswap and the Decentralized Finance Platform (Defi) capminal, which They had delays in processing operations, according to its founder.
