Base Network Experiences 33-Minute Block Production Halt Due to Sequencer Failure

Block production on Coinbase's Base network halted for 33 minutes due to a sequencer failover that did not recover as expected. The outage began at 06:07 UTC on August 5, caused by congestion from on-chain activity. The active sequencer fell behind and attempted to shift responsibility to a standby sequencer that was not fully provisioned.

Key points:

The new sequencer could not produce blocks, leading to a stall until manual intervention occurred.
Engineers restored full network functionality by 06:40 UTC.
The incident highlighted operational risks in layer-2 rollup networks relying on centralized sequencers.
Base plans infrastructure changes to ensure all sequencers are ready before election and improve test coverage.
This halt follows previous outages on other OP Stack chains amid increased traffic from token launches and NFT mints.