Base Went Dark for Two Hours — Here’s What Took Down Coinbase’s Blockchain

TLDR

• Coinbase-backed Base blockchain went offline for nearly two hours on Thursday due to a consensus problem
• An invalid block was sequenced, preventing new blocks from being created
• Block production recovered by around 6 pm UTC, with ecosystem infrastructure syncing normally
• Base creator Jesse Pollack confirmed all funds on the network are safe
• The outage happened hours before a scheduled network upgrade called Beryl, which completed successfully

Coinbase’s Base blockchain, one of Ethereum’s largest layer-2 networks, went offline for nearly two hours on Thursday after a consensus issue caused an invalid block to be processed, halting all transaction activity.

The problem was first flagged at 4:03 pm UTC, when Base’s status page reported that block production was “unhealthy.” By 5:21 pm UTC, the team had identified the cause: a consensus problem that caused an invalid block to be sequenced, which then prevented any new blocks from being created.

Base confirmed recovery just before 6 pm UTC, saying blocks were “being produced normally” and that ecosystem-wide infrastructure had been able to sync. The team said it had identified the issue and would share a full post-mortem.

The network advised node operators to restart their Base nodes to restore proper synchronization. Internal nodes were confirmed to be syncing correctly following recovery.

Funds Safe, Investigation Ongoing

Jesse Pollack, creator of Base, posted on X to reassure users that all funds on the network remained safe throughout the outage. He acknowledged the halt was unacceptable, saying the team would use the incident to improve Base as a platform for “global, 24/7 finance.”

Base has not yet disclosed the full root cause of the invalid block, or whether it stemmed from a software bug or another type of consensus fault. A full post-mortem is expected.

This was not the first time Base has gone down. The network previously experienced an outage in August 2025, which lasted around 33 minutes. Thursday’s outage was longer, running close to two hours.

Beryl Upgrade Completed After Outage

The outage occurred just hours before a planned network upgrade for Base, called Beryl, which had been scheduled for 6 pm UTC. The upgrade went ahead and was completed around 8 pm UTC.

Beryl aimed to reduce withdrawal delays on the network and introduce a new token standard designed for real-world assets and stablecoins.

The two events appeared to be separate. Base has not indicated the Beryl upgrade was connected to the outage.

Base is the most-used Ethereum layer-2 network. Its downtime on Thursday was described as a rare event for a blockchain of its size.

Layer-1 blockchain Sui also experienced two separate outages on back-to-back days in May, each caused by a network update that had a known low probability of triggering a halt.

Base’s team said it will continue to monitor network stability and provide further updates as the investigation continues.

The Beryl upgrade’s successful completion later that evening marked the network’s return to normal operations.

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