• Base, a Layer 2 network developed by Coinbase, witnessed over one million wallets initiating smart contracts during its test phase.
• The high activity during testing helped identify critical stress points in Base’s design and infrastructure, allowing the team to address them.
• The team encountered challenges in securely delivering batches of cryptographic proofs to Ethereum’s Goerli testnet after increasing the Base block gas limit, necessitating further fine-tuning of transaction batching parameters.

Base, the Layer 2 network developed by Coinbase, witnessed more than one million wallets engaging in smart contracts during the testing phase known as the Builder Quest period. This initiative aimed to stress test the network’s capabilities and identify potential issues in its design and infrastructure. The surge in activity allowed the team to pinpoint critical stress points and actively address them.

During testing, the network experienced a significant increase in activity and data-intensive transactions. In response, developers increased the Base block gas limit to accommodate more transactions per block and mitigate the rise in base fees. However, this modification posed challenges in securely delivering batches of cryptographic proofs back to Ethereum’s Goerli testnet, the Layer 1 chain. Fine-tuning parameters and adjusting the transaction batching process became necessary.

The team acknowledged the struggle to achieve equilibrium and publish the unsafe blocks to the Layer 1 network, emphasizing the need for a robust, long-term solution. Built on Optimism’s development software stack, Base operates as a roll-up network, offering faster and more cost-effective transactions while leveraging the security benefits of the Ethereum mainnet. It could potentially become the default Layer 2 network for Coinbase’s on-chain products.

In response to the spike in activity, the Base team implemented two optimizations. Firstly, they enhanced data compression to utilize L1 transaction call data more efficiently. Secondly, they modified the system to allow the submission of multiple batches of transactions for each L1 block, improving system stability. These changes ensure low and accessible base fees and enhance the reliability of writing L2 data to L1, facilitating speedy withdrawals and transactions.

Base’s testnet has attracted interest from various developers and projects, including Blackbird, Thirdweb, OAK, and Parallel. Prominent DeFi platforms like Uniswap and Aave are also considering deploying on Base once it transitions to the mainnet.