XRP Ledger Recovers After Hour-Long Block Production Halt

TLDR:

• XRP Ledger experienced an hour-long halt in block production on Tuesday, February 5, 2025, at ledger height 93927173, though it recovered spontaneously with no loss of assets or transactions
• The disruption was attributed to a consensus issue where validations weren’t being published, causing network “drift,” according to Ripple CTO David Schwartz
• All 35 network validators were actively proposing during the incident, but the network entered a “silent network” failure mode where validators stopped sending validations
• The XRP Ledger has faced other technical challenges recently, including a node crash in November 2024 and full history node failures in September 2024
• XRP’s price dropped 8.3% to $2.52 during the incident, though this aligned with broader crypto market movements

The XRP Ledger, one of cryptocurrency’s oldest networks, experienced an unexpected halt in block production for approximately one hour on Tuesday, February 5, 2025. The disruption, which occurred at ledger height 93927173, marked a rare interruption in the network’s usual operations before recovering on its own.

David Schwartz, Chief Technology Officer of Ripple, explained the technical nature of the halt on social media platform X. According to Schwartz, while the consensus mechanism appeared to be running, validations were not being published, which led to the network “drifting apart.”

XRP Ledger is Back Online

The XRP ledger is now fully operational after the recent halt, and transactions can resume as normal.

We’re monitoring the situation and will share a full update once more information is available.

— Xaman® Wallet (@XamanWallet) February 4, 2025

The XRP Ledger’s consensus mechanism relies on a system called the Unique Node List (UNL), which serves as a trusted validator directory. These validators play a crucial role in maintaining network integrity and ensuring transaction finality. During the incident, all 35 nodes in the network were actively proposing, as confirmed by Daniel Keller, CTO of XRPL node operator Eminence.

The network entered what Schwartz described as a “silent network” failure mode. In this scenario, validators stopped sending validations because they detected potential issues with the network. This protective measure was designed to prevent servers from accepting ledgers as fully validated when there was uncertainty about network agreement.

Despite the disruption, Schwartz emphasized that no assets were at risk during the downtime. The servers recognized the network wasn’t working correctly and responded by not reporting any ledgers as trusted throughout the hour-long incident.

The halt triggered immediate response from the XRP community. Xaman Wallet, a service provider in the XRP ecosystem, quickly informed users about the situation and confirmed when normal operations resumed.

This incident occurs against a backdrop of recent technical challenges for the XRP Ledger. In November 2024, the network experienced a node crash. Before that, in September 2024, the system faced full history node failures that required emergency patches to resolve.

The structure of the XRP Ledger’s validator network has evolved over the past two years. In January 2023, the XRPL Foundation implemented a “one entity, one validator” policy, which led to the removal of a Ripple-operated validator from the UNL. This action reduced Ripple’s influence to 2 out of 34 validators at that time.

Further changes came in March 2023, when the network expanded to include more community-run nodes, bringing the total to 36 validators. During this update, an unresponsive validator from the University of Korea was removed, adjusting the count to 35. The network maintained its quorum threshold at 80% of trusted validators.

The price of XRP reacted to the network disruption, showing an 8.3% decrease to $2.52, according to data from CoinGecko. However, this movement aligned with broader trends in the cryptocurrency market rather than being solely attributed to the network halt.

The recovery process happened without major intervention. While at least one validator operator manually attempted to reset the network’s consensus to a previously validated ledger state, the system appeared to have corrected itself independently.

During the downtime, transaction processing was paused, but no transactions were lost or compromised. Once the network resumed operations, normal transaction processing continued without any reported issues.

The XRP Ledger’s design includes built-in safety measures to prevent the acceptance of potentially incorrect ledger states. These measures activated during the incident, causing validators to stop sending validations when they detected anomalies.

Recent changes to the XRP Ledger include an update to reserve requirements. In December 2024, validators approved new reserve fees, reducing the base reserve requirement from 10 XRP to 1 XRP, making account activation more accessible at current price levels.

Technical teams continue to monitor the network for any residual effects of the halt, though normal operations have fully resumed. The investigation into the root cause of the validation publishing issue remains ongoing.

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