Base fixes propagation bug after Jan. fee-driven congestion; month-long pipeline overhaul planned

Published: 2026-02-04 13:05:33 |

Base, Coinbase‑backed Ethereum Layer‑2, restored network stability after a Jan. 31 configuration change to transaction propagation caused elevated congestion, higher latency and dropped transactions. The change made the block builder repeatedly fetch transactions that became non-executable amid rapidly rising base fees, creating a feedback loop that increased transaction drops. Rolling back the configuration restored normal processing, though Base warned intermittent congestion could persist. The team plans a one‑month remediation: streamline the transaction pipeline by removing P2P overhead, tune mempool queue behavior, and improve alerting and change‑monitoring. A full root‑cause postmortem will be published. Relevant keywords: Base, Layer‑2, transaction propagation, mempool, base fees, congestion, rollback, postmortem.

Neutral

The incident was operational and was resolved quickly by rolling back a configuration change; blocks continued to be produced and no protocol exploit or consensus failure occurred. For traders this reduces systemic risk: transaction finality and block production were unaffected, so long‑term confidence in Base’s security and economic model is unchanged. Short‑term, intermittent congestion and higher failed/dropped transactions could increase user friction for traders using Base — causing temporarily higher gas costs, delayed order execution, or failed on‑chain position adjustments. Similar operational incidents (mempool/middleware bugs) typically produce neutral to mildly negative short‑term price impact for native tokens but rarely trigger material market moves if resolved swiftly. The planned one‑month pipeline and monitoring improvements are constructive for market confidence once completed, reducing recurrence risk. Overall: operational fix limits market fallout; traders should monitor Base status and mempool metrics and avoid large time‑sensitive onchain operations during ongoing remediation.