Base outage highlights growing pains of a chain with real users

Key Points

1. Base network halted block production for about 33 minutes due to an 'unsafe head delay', which was quickly resolved by the Base team.

2. The outage did not significantly disrupt DeFi protocols; lending platforms like Aave, Morph, and Moonwell were temporarily frozen but avoided mispriced liquidations due to Chainlink's Sequencer Uptime Feed.

3. Base App's recent rollout has driven a surge in onchain activity, with daily token launches on Zora spiking to nearly 40,000, up from a previous average of around 4,000.

4. Base Pay, a USDC-powered payment solution, is expanding its adoption with features like 1% cashback incentives for USDC payments on Shopify and simplified wallet creation via email.

5. The outage highlighted Base's growing user reliance, as it drew immediate attention unlike less active chains, while also showcasing the resilience of DeFi protocols during disruptions.