Base Chain Weekly Institutional Research Report – December 3, 2025

Base Chain announced continued scaling progress in late Q4 2025, targeting a gas-limit increase from 75 Mgas/s to 150 Mgas/s and delivering sub‑cent median fees that now average roughly $0.0005. The upgrades coincide with rising transaction throughput, mounting DeFi activity and deeper Coinbase integrations that expand payment and custody use cases (Base blog; Blockworks; Token Terminal).

Key facts

• Planned gas-limit doubling from 75 to 150 Mgas/s to raise throughput and preserve low fees (Base blog).
• Median transaction fees reported near $0.0005 with block times around 200 ms (Base blog; Token Terminal).
• On‑chain throughput routinely above 1,200 TPS with peak bursts reported to 3,571 TPS (Blockworks; Chainspect).
• Reported TVL roughly $200 million and growing monthly active users, aided by Coinbase and Shopify integrations (DeFiLlama; Coinbase; Blockworks).

Why this matters

This matters because the gas‑limit increase and sub‑cent fees materially change user economics on Base: faster, cheaper transactions lower barriers for micro‑payments, NFTs and high‑frequency DeFi interactions while Coinbase custody and Shopify payment integrations expand on‑ramps from retail and merchants into the Base ecosystem (Base blog; Coinbase).

Details

Official announcements from Base’s engineering blog outline a staged capacity plan to double gas limits within 30 days and a sequence of client optimizations to maintain chain stability during the increase (Base blog). Blockworks and Chainspect data show recent sustained TPS above 1,200, real‑time peaks of 160.2 TPS reported in some feeds and burst events into the thousands during high activity windows (Blockworks; Chainspect).

Market metrics place TVL near $200 million with a 10x year‑over‑year rise in transaction volume attributed to new DeFi and NFT launches on Base (DeFiLlama; Token Terminal). Coinbase reports continued user growth and a waitlist for the Base App, while USDC acceptance via Shopify Payments increases Base’s payments utility (Coinbase; SQ Magazine summary).

Stakeholder reactions & technical significance

Developers and protocol teams have publicly signaled cautious optimism: increased gas capacity enables richer dApp designs but raises operational risks if scaling is rushed. Audits and staged rollouts were emphasized in community discussions to avoid instability as limits climb (developer forums; audit summaries).

Analysis

For the Base ecosystem, successfully doubling capacity would strengthen its competitive position among optimistic rollups by combining low fees, low latency and Coinbase‑level on‑ramps. However, zk‑rollups’ validity proof model remains a competitive pressure point for high‑security DeFi firms. Maintaining stability during aggressive scaling will be critical to retaining high‑quality users rather than pursuing solely volume growth.

Background

Launched as an EVM‑compatible optimistic rollup, Base has focused on institutional onboarding via Coinbase and on rapid client and gas optimizations throughout 2024-25. The chain inherits Ethereum security through fraud proofs while trading longer challenge windows for higher off‑chain throughput.

What’s next

Market participants will watch Base’s staged gas‑limit rollout, subsequent fee and latency readings, and audit findings related to scaling. Additional merchant integrations and developer launches are expected in Q1 2026; competitive moves from zk‑rollups and operators will likely shape protocol priorities.

Sources

• Base blog – “Scaling Base: Doubling capacity in 30 days” (blog.base.dev)
• Blockworks analytics – Base activity (blockworks.co)
• Token Terminal — Base MAU and metrics (tokenterminal.com)
• DeFiLlama and BaseScan — TVL and protocol stats (defillama.com / basescan.org)
• Coinbase communications and product pages (coinbase.com)
• Chainspect / Chainspect dashboard analytics (chainspect.app)