Base, an Ethereum layer 2 network, has postponed its Beryl mainnet upgrade by one day. The hard fork is now scheduled to activate on June 26 at 18:00 UTC instead of the previously planned June 25 launch. The delay stems from a timing dependency involving the B20 Activation Registry, which must finish its initialization before developers can deploy native B20 tokens. Base explained that the registry controls when B20 feature flags become available after the hard fork, and it can take up to an hour to come online after activation. The extra day ensures everything is ready before the upgrade proceeds.
Beryl upgrade introduces B20 token standard
Beryl is Base’s second independent network upgrade following Azul, which went live on mainnet in May. The release introduces B20, a protocol-level token standard that lets issuers create stablecoins and real-world asset tokens directly within Base’s node software. This avoids deploying conventional ERC-20 smart contracts. Base previously noted that B20 remains compatible with the ERC-20 specification and supports ERC-2612 permit functionality, meaning existing wallets, exchanges, and indexers should work without changes. The protocol includes an Issuer Toolkit with role-based permissions, mint and burn controls, transfer restrictions, optional supply limits, and freeze and seizure features for regulated issuers.
The hard fork also shortens the standard withdrawal period from Base to Ethereum from seven days to five days for the route most bridging providers use. Base credited this improvement to Azul’s Multiproofs framework, which reduced reliance on the original fault-proof challenge window. Additionally, Beryl integrates Reth V2, which reportedly reduces storage requirements for nodes by up to 50% while supporting higher block gas targets.
Outage unrelated to Beryl upgrade
Base originally scheduled Beryl for June 25, the same day the network experienced a block production outage lasting nearly two hours. The engineering team identified a consensus issue after an invalid block entered the sequencing pipeline, temporarily stopping new block creation. Engineers restored normal block production later that day. Base confirmed the incident was unrelated to the planned Beryl upgrade.
According to Base, blocks are being produced normally, and widespread recovery has been verified in the ecosystem. Any remaining stuck Base nodes should recover upon restart and syncing. The team has found the root cause for the halt and will share a full post-mortem based on their learnings. Base creator Jesse Pollak stated that user funds remained safe during the outage, though he acknowledged that network halts are unacceptable for infrastructure meant to support global financial activity.
Base has scheduled its next network upgrade, Cobalt, for September. That release is expected to introduce native account abstraction, protocol-level smart accounts, gas sponsorship, transaction batching, additional B20 capabilities, and a unified node binary that combines consensus and execution clients.
