Base Reports Transaction Inclusion Delays and Moves to Smooth Network Traffic

Base’s status page posts an incident titled “Transaction Inclusion Delays,” noting that the chain sees heavy transaction volume and that fixes are in progress.

The page shows a Feb 6 update labeled “Identified – Update 2/6 01:30 UTC,” describing both same-day mitigations and longer-term reliability work. It then lists an “Update” at Feb 06, 2026 – 01:46 UTC that attributes the delays to heavy transaction volume and says active fixes are underway.

At a high level, the signal is simple: Base is producing blocks, but users can see slower-than-normal inclusion, meaning submitted transactions take longer to land onchain than expected.

What “Transaction Inclusion Delays” Actually Means on an L2

On an Ethereum L2 like Base, users typically submit transactions through RPC endpoints (wallets, apps, and nodes) that forward signed transactions to the network. “Inclusion” is the moment a transaction is selected by the sequencer and placed into an L2 block. Base’s own documentation frames normal L2 block inclusion as roughly seconds under typical conditions, before any longer-term finality considerations come into play.

When inclusion delays appear, the most common end-user symptoms look like this:

• A wallet shows “pending” for longer than usual.
• A swap or bridge action sits unconfirmed, and the UI may ask the user to speed up, resubmit, or wait.
• MEV-sensitive actions (limit orders, liquidations, arbitrage) become riskier because timing assumptions break.
• Some transactions do not propagate cleanly during load, which can show up as “dropped” behavior that requires resubmission.

Base has previously described how congestion can lead to intermittent delays or dropped transactions, and the current incident language is consistent with that pattern.

What Base Says It Did on Feb 6

In the Feb 6 “Identified” update on the Base status page, the team describes near-term changes aimed at smoothing inbound traffic and improving how transactions reach the block builder:

• Doubling disk IO throughput for the transaction pool (txpool) on mainnet.
• Changing the eth_sendRawTransaction rate limiting window to smooth incoming spikes.
• Building and testing a more stable routing algorithm for sending transactions to the most efficient backend, with an expectation that it reaches mainnet within days.

Those details matter because they point to where the bottleneck shows up during elevated demand:

• If RPC submission slows or rate limits tighten, wallets and apps can see more pending time or submission errors.
• If txpool performance degrades, transaction propagation and selection become less efficient.
• If routing to the best backend is unstable, the same transaction can spend more time bouncing between infrastructure layers instead of reaching the block builder quickly.

This update also matters because it implicitly confirms a “traffic reduction” lever: changing how raw transaction submission is rate limited. That can reduce peak pressure, but it can also create uneven UX for high-throughput users, bots, and apps that burst many transactions at once.

The Longer-Term Work Base Signals

The same Feb 6 status update states that the broader workstream is expected to take “4 to 6 weeks” to achieve stable transaction inclusion and block production, then lists several longer-term initiatives:

• A transaction propagation redesign that reduces P2P overhead when getting transactions to the block builder.
• Scaling and optimizing how pending and queued transactions are stored.
• Unifying block building, sequencing, and flashblocks streaming components.

This is the practical takeaway: the incident is treated as an infrastructure scaling problem, not a one-off glitch. The roadmap explicitly targets propagation, storage, and coordination between block construction and sequencing.

Why It Matters for Traders, Bridges, and DeFi Apps

Transaction inclusion delays are not just an annoyance. They change settlement risk.

For traders, the risk often concentrates in execution windows:

• A swap quoted at time T can execute at time T+Δ, which can cause more slippage, partial fills, or unexpected price movement.
• Cross-venue strategies that assume fast transfers (for example, moving stablecoins between venues, or rebalancing positions across chains) become less reliable.
• Liquidation avoidance gets harder because “repay” or “add collateral” transactions might not land before thresholds trigger.

For bridges and cross-chain flows, the pain is timing sensitivity. A bridge sequence often depends on L2 inclusion first, then relay or finality steps. If the first step stalls, everything behind it stalls.

For app teams, the biggest problem is that “pending” status is contagious. If a user sees a stuck transaction, they often re-click, resubmit, or spam retries, which can amplify load and worsen queueing dynamics.

Base’s network information docs include guidance around block building behavior and constraints (for example, how large gas limits can face additional inclusion constraints), which becomes more relevant in congestion windows.

How Users Can Reduce Risk During Inclusion Delays

This section stays practical and avoids guessing outcomes.

1. Prefer fewer, higher-quality transactions

Under congestion, spamming retries can backfire. A smaller number of properly priced transactions is often more effective than repeated submissions.

2. Expect RPC submission bottlenecks

Because Base’s own incident note mentions eth_sendRawTransaction rate limiting changes, wallets and apps should anticipate intermittent submission friction. If an app supports multiple RPC providers, switching providers can improve reliability, but it cannot fully bypass network-wide stress.

3. Monitor the chain status before time-sensitive actions

For time-critical actions (large swaps, liquidation prevention, bridge deadlines), checking the live Base status pagereduces surprises. It indicates whether the incident remains unresolved and which components are degraded.

4. Treat “pending” as ambiguous, not failed

During inclusion delays, a transaction can be valid but slow. Replacing a pending transaction can help in some wallet flows, but it also risks confusion if the original later lands. App teams should design UI messaging that explains this clearly.

What to Watch Next

The Base status page currently reads like an active scaling effort with a multi-week stabilization horizon. The key indicators to watch are:

• Whether Base posts new updates that move from “identified” to “monitoring” and then “resolved” on the status channel.
• Whether the rate limiting adjustments lead to fewer dropped transactions and shorter inclusion latency under load.
• Whether the routing algorithm changes and txpool IO improvements materially reduce peak-time backlog.

The cleanest objective signal is simply whether transactions return to predictable inclusion timing and whether apps stop reporting widespread pending behavior.

Conclusion

Base’s status updates for Feb 6 show transaction inclusion delays tied to heavy volume, with mitigations focused on txpool throughput, RPC submission smoothing, and more efficient routing to block building infrastructure. Until the incident fully clears, traders and app users face higher settlement uncertainty, especially for swaps, bridges, and time-sensitive contract interactions. The most reliable source of truth remains the live Base status channel, alongside Base’s network documentation that describes normal inclusion and block-building behavior.

Helpful references used in this article include the live Base status page, the incident entry for Transaction Inclusion Delays, Base documentation on Transaction Finality, Base notes on Block Building, and Base guidance on Network Fees.

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