This thread explores the growth and potential of the Ethereum L2 Base. It asserts that Base differentiates itself as a 'builder chain'. While Base was relatively slow to gain traction, the current uptick in speculative activity, especially in memecoins, interest in the ecosystem has been increasing significantly. The affordable gas fees and increasing user base present ample opportunities for developers to build applications.

This thread lists some of Jesse Pollak’s (the creator of Base) favorite non-financial apps on the chain, which include projects such as Blackbird and Parallel.

This article discusses the potential future of decentralized social networking through crypto, pointing to the emergence of $DEGEN on Base. By pairing social data with a single currency across multiple platforms, $DEGEN may shift the value from platforms to participants who own, manage, and control the networks it is built upon. These dynamics could lead to a transformation in how social networking platforms operate and even the ownership of such platforms.

On September 21, 2024, at 15:14 UTC, Base Mainnet experienced a significant incident characterized by a 17-minute block building outage. This event, while disruptive, did not compromise the integrity of the blockchain, and all funds remained secure. The incident prompted Base to conduct a thorough retrospective to analyze the root cause, the impact of the outage, the mitigation steps taken, and future improvements. The outage was traced back to a misconfiguration within the sequencer cluster. When the active block producer became unhealthy, it failed to initiate block production on an alternative instance. The situation was resolved by manually restarting block production on a properly configured instance. During the outage, no blocks were produced, specifically from block numbers 20071146 to 20071691, which were generated only after block production resumed. Transaction processing continued through the `eth_sendRawTransaction` RPC call, which allows transactions to be submitted to Base and placed in the mempool. Despite the mempool functioning correctly, there was a noticeable decline in transaction submissions during the outage, likely due to applications being affected by the halt in block production. Following the resumption of block production, many transactions that had been submitted during the outage were included in the subsequent blocks. In the background, Base had been working on a system called op-conductor, designed to enhance the reliability of block production and achieve a target availability of 99.99%. Prior to implementing op-conductor, any failure of the sequencer would lead to an outage. The transition to the op-conductor cluster occurred on September 20, 2024, but the instances were misconfigured, preventing the op-node from submitting new unsafe block payloads to op-conductor. The trigger for the incident was a delay in block production experienced by the active sequencer. op-conductor detected this issue and attempted to transfer leadership to another instance. However, due to the misconfiguration, the new block producer could not start production, as it required an unsafe payload that had not been written by the previous leader. This miscommunication resulted in a state where no instance could act as an active block producer. To mitigate the incident, Base reverted to the single sequencer topology while addressing the configuration issues within the op-conductor cluster. Moving forward, Base plans to implement several improvements, including establishing a bidirectional handshake between op-node and op-conductor at startup to ensure proper communication and enhancing internal configuration management processes to prevent and detect future misconfigurations. This incident serves as a learning opportunity for Base, reinforcing its commitment to transparency and continuous improvement in its operations.

The discussion centers around the evolving landscape of Layer 1 (L1) and Layer 2 (L2) blockchain ecosystems, particularly focusing on the competition for developers and talent. As these ecosystems mature, the competition has intensified, with two primary players emerging as leaders in the developer community: Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and Solana Virtual Machine (SVM). EVM is largely represented by Base, while SVM is associated with Solana. Founders who join the Alliance typically have a clear preference for specific L1s or L2s, which reflects the current market demand and the success of these chains in attracting high-quality builders. The projects that arise from the Alliance are indicative of where developers choose to focus their efforts. Convincing builders to adopt new chains is challenging unless those chains offer significant technical advantages, such as a tenfold improvement over existing options. Even then, the willingness to take on platform risk is decreasing as established chains like Base and Solana continue to enhance their capabilities, including throughput, cost efficiency, and speed. The cultural dynamics between the Base and Solana communities are also noteworthy. The Base community is characterized by its inclusivity, a focus on creators, and a mission to onboard a broader audience onto the blockchain. In contrast, Solana tends to attract engineering-focused builders and emphasizes a diverse range of product development. This divergence in community values has led to a cultural clash, with some founders transitioning between chains based on their alignment with these differing philosophies. While the market is not strictly winner-takes-all, certain chains are currently gaining a significant share of developer interest. As new chains prepare to enter the market, they will face increasing challenges in competing against the established momentum of leading chains. The ongoing cultural shifts and the competitive landscape will likely shape the future of blockchain development and community engagement.