Base Suffers First Outage

Olivia Capozzalo & Camila Russo
August 05, 2025

gm, Defiers!

Here’s what’s happening today

TL;DR

Base briefly paused block production early on Monday after nearly two years of steady operation
SEC says liquid staking tokens are not securities
DEX perps volumes hit an ATH in July, with Hyperliquid leading the pack, but CEXs still dominate by far
Nasdaq-listed Verb revealed it has raised over $550 million to create the first public Toncoin (TON) treasury, and TON sank on the news
Web3 first-person shooter game Shrapnel is set to leave the Avalanche blockchain for a new home in the Gala Games ecosystem
Coinbase’s “everything exchange” ambition is part of a growing trend in the U.S. as firms chase the “super app” model popularized in Asia [FEATURE]
Getting started with Flare and XRP DeFi [SPONSORED]
DeFi Saver: Elevating DeFi excellence with game-changing features [SPONSORED]

Read more below! But first, please give our sponsors some love; they make this newsletter possible.

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The Road to 5,000 TPS: Scaling Stellar in 2025

In 2025, one of the Stellar Development Foundation’s (SDF) primary goals is to increase Stellar Core’s theoretical throughput to 5,000 transactions per second (TPS). As adoption of Soroban — the Stellar smart contracts platform — accelerates and new use cases emerge, scalability is essential to ensuring that Stellar remains fast, affordable, and developer-friendly.

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Alephium’s Danube Upgrade Is Live — The Web3 We Were Promised, On Proof-of-Work

Alephium, the only scalable Layer 1 powered by Proof-of-Work and native sharding, has launched its landmark Danube upgrade. Danube delivers the performance and simplicity users expect with 8-second block times, seedless onboarding, invisible sharding, and a smoother smart contract experience. It’s Web2-grade UX, running on a decentralized, energy-efficient PoW chain.

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Read more: Alephium’s Danube Upgrade Goes Live: A Major Leap for Web3 on Proof of Work

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We’re back! Here’s what you need to know in web3 today

📈 Markets in the Last 24 Hours

TICKER	VALUE	24H
Bitcoin	$113,540	-1.40 %
Ethereum	$3,603.55	-2.13 %
XRP	$2.98	-2.31 %
BNB	$752.87	-1.74 %
Solana	$164.57	-1.69 %

MessariPortals	MINDSHARE Rank	MINDSHARE % Change (7d)
		23.67%
		-24.02%
		1.25%
Powered by Messari Portals

Let’s get into it:

The Risk of Everything Onchain is That Some Chains Turn Off

After two years of flawless uptime, Base, Coinbase’s flagship Layer 2, paused block production early Monday. The outage lasted less than an hour, but it was a reminder that no matter how sleek the UX or huge the backer, some chains are not infinite machines (wink*).

That reminder comes just as Coinbase and its U.S. peers push harder than ever to become crypto’s answer to Asia’s super apps with an “everything exchange,” as reported in a feature this week. But that dream runs into a few real-world frictions: namely regulation, UX, and, as we saw with the recent outage, blockchain reliability.

Speaking of regulation, the SEC today clarified its stance on staking. In a filing, the Commission said it does not consider liquid staking tokens to be securities. This means protocols like Lido and Rocket Pool can breathe a little easier, while centralized exchanges offering access to liquid staking might feel newly emboldened.

Zooming out to trading volumes, it’s clear the market is shifting. Decentralized perpetuals DEXs just hit an all-time high in July, led by Hyperliquid. The numbers are staggering—Hyperliquid is now nipping at the heels of smaller CEXs, though it still trails the big incumbents by orders of magnitude. The takeaway? Onchain trading is gaining ground, especially for degens who want leverage without intermediaries. But centralized exchanges remain dominant for now, thanks to deeper liquidity, smoother UX, and regulatory cover.

Then there’s TON. In a classic case of “buy the rumor, sell the news,” Telegram-linked Toncoin (TON) plunged after Nasdaq-listed Verb Technology announced it had raised over $550 million to create the first publicly traded TON treasury. That kind of war chest could have been a major bullish catalyst—except it wasn’t. Why? Maybe because retail sees through the treasury-as-price-support playbook. Or maybe it was simply a crowded trade. Either way, the message is clear: public markets and token treasuries don’t always mix cleanly, and not all capital raises inspire confidence.

Speaking of disillusionment, Web3 gaming studio Shrapnel has abandoned Avalanche, jumping ship to Gala Games’ ecosystem. Even as Avalanche provides an option to build customized Layer 1s, Sharpnel decided to go with a gaming-specific blockchain.

Exchanges want to be super-apps. Chains want to be infalible infrastructure. Games want to be ecosystems. Regulators are slowly catching up. And users? They just want stuff that works (and doesn’t halt for an hour).

With love,

Cami, founder of The Defiant

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🎬WATCH

Ethereum Turns 10: Joe Lubin on Revolutionizing the Global Economy

In the latest episode of The Defiant Podcast, as Ethereum celebrated its 10th anniversary, Cami sat down with Joe Lubin, Ethereum co-founder and CEO of Consensys, for an exclusive deep dive into the past, present, and future of the Ethereum ecosystem.

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