The XRP Ledger Resumes Operations After Temporary Halt
The XRP Ledger recently experienced an unexpected disruption in transaction validation, causing the network to come to a halt for approximately an hour on Feb. 5, 2025. RippleX has confirmed that the XRP Ledger has now fully resumed operations, although the exact cause of the disruption remains unclear. Ripple’s Chief Technology Officer, David Schwartz, addressed the issue on his post on X, stating that validators had stopped publishing confirmations despite the consensus mechanism functioning normally.
Schwartz’s preliminary observations suggest that servers may have deliberately withheld validations to prevent incorrect ledger acceptance. He mentioned that the network is recovering, and while the exact cause of the issue is still unknown, it appeared that consensus was running but validations were not being published, causing the network to drift apart. Validator operators intervened to resolve the issue, with one operator taking action to restore the network.
It is crucial to note that no ledgers that received majority validation were lost or affected in any way during the disruption. Consensus is a vital component in the XRP Ledger for processing transactions. If validators fail to agree on which transactions to include, the network halts. The XRP Ledger previously faced a brief outage on Nov. 25, lasting about 10 minutes, where several nodes crashed and restarted simultaneously, leading to a temporary halt in transaction processing. Ripple addressed this issue by encouraging validators and node operators to upgrade to the latest version, Rippled 2.3.0, to enhance network stability and prevent similar incidents.
Despite the temporary disruption, the price of Ripple (XRP) remained relatively stable, trading at around $2.50 with a 4% change over the last 24 hours. The resilience of the XRP Ledger in quickly recovering from the disruption showcases the robustness of the network and the commitment of the community to maintain its integrity and functionality.