Analyst: Base Network Down Due to Invalid Block Causing Outage; Single Sequencer Model Poses Centralization Risk

Odaily Planet Daily News On-chain analyst Vadim pointed out that Base experienced a consensus vulnerability today, leading to a single invalid block. All blocks after block height 47806542 stopped being generated, resulting in a network outage lasting nearly two hours. Due to Base's adoption of a single sequencer architecture, when this node fails, the entire network ceases to operate, with no backup block producers or other verification nodes able to bypass the fault to maintain on-chain activity. During this outage, users were unable to conduct transactions, liquidations, or withdrawals.

Furthermore, the network recovery process was not automated. Node operators within the ecosystem had to manually restart before block synchronization gradually resumed. This is not the first time Base has encountered a similar issue. In August last year, Base also experienced a network freeze lasting approximately 33 minutes due to a sequencer switchover failure. The single sequencer model exposes the centralization risk of some current Layer 2 networks: while it offers higher speed, when a core component encounters a problem, the entire chain can be halted due to a single point of failure.