Base batches users' transactions and submits them to Ethereum, paying a share of the transaction fees to Ethereum validators (expense).

Base is an Ethereum Layer 2 (L2) offering a secure, low-cost, builder-friendly way for anyone, anywhere, to build onchain.

Coinbase team owns and governs the protocol. Coinbase is a public company and its investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Vanguard Group, ARK Investment Management, etc.

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Blockchains (L2)

Base

# Base Block time Methodology

## 1. Overview

Block time measures the average time interval between consecutive blocks on the Base blockchain, reported as a daily average in milliseconds. This metric indicates the blockchain's block production performance and network health. The calculation analyzes consecutive block timestamps to determine how quickly blocks are being produced on average each day, providing insight into the network's operational efficiency and consistency.

## 2. Data sources

The calculation relies on a single primary data source:
- **Base blockchain block headers**: Raw block metadata from the Base network containing block numbers and precise timestamps for when each block was mined or validated

## 3. Step-by-step calculation

### Component A: Block data preparation
- **Purpose**: Extract and prepare raw block data for time interval calculations
- **Logic**: Retrieves block timestamps and block numbers from Base blockchain block headers. Excludes the genesis block (block number 0) since it has an artificial timestamp at the Unix epoch start rather than a natural block production time. Applies safe casting to ensure proper data types for timestamp and integer fields.
- **Key fields**: `block_timestamp` (when the block was produced), `block_number` (sequential block identifier)

### Component B: Consecutive block pairing
- **Purpose**: Create pairs of consecutive blocks to enable time difference calculations
- **Logic**: Uses a LAG window function ordered by block number to pair each block with the timestamp of the immediately preceding block. This creates the necessary data structure to calculate time intervals between sequential blocks in the blockchain.
- **Key fields**: `block_timestamp` (current block time), `previous_timestamp` (previous block time), `block_number` (for ordering)

### Component C: Block time interval calculation
- **Purpose**: Calculate the time difference between consecutive blocks
- **Logic**: Computes the millisecond difference between each block's timestamp and the previous block's timestamp using timestamp difference functions. Truncates block timestamps to daily boundaries to enable daily aggregation. Excludes any records where the previous timestamp is null (which occurs for the first block after genesis).
- **Key fields**: `block_time` (millisecond interval), `timestamp` (daily boundary for grouping)

### Final aggregation
- **Combining components**: Groups all block time intervals by day and calculates the average block time for each 24-hour period
- **Currency conversion**: Not applicable - block times are measured in milliseconds
- **Time aggregation**: Uses daily boundaries with timestamp truncation to day level, grouping all blocks produced within each calendar day
- **Final calculation**: The final metric is the average of all individual block time intervals within each day, providing a daily average block time in milliseconds for the Base blockchain. The result includes standardized metadata identifying Base as an L2 blockchain in the blockchain business segment.

*This methodology was automatically generated by Token Terminal's methodology analyzer.*

avg(block_timestamp - previous_block_timestamp)

Base

Block time

Block time

Competitive landscape

Chain breakdown