On February 5, 2025, the XRP Ledger faced unexpected issues that led to an hour-long network halt. RippleX confirmed that the network is back online, although the exact cause of the disruption is still unclear.
Causes of Network Halt
Ripple's Chief Technology Officer, David Schwartz, noted that transaction validation was suspended despite the consensus mechanism functioning normally. He stated that preliminary observations suggest servers may have deliberately withheld validations to prevent incorrect ledger acceptance.
Actions of Network Participants
Schwartz initially believed that multiple validator operators manually intervened to restore the network. He later clarified that only one operator took action, and it remains unclear if this resolved the issue or if the network self-healed. He also assured that no ledgers receiving majority validation were lost or affected.
Previous Issues and Their Consequences
Consensus in the XRP Ledger is vital for processing transactions. If validators fail to agree on which transactions to include, the network halts. Previously, on November 25, the XRP Ledger experienced a brief 10-minute outage when several nodes crashed and restarted simultaneously, halting transaction processing. Ripple urged validators and node operators to upgrade to the latest Rippled 2.3.0 version to enhance network stability.
Despite the recent issues, the XRP price remained relatively stable, trading at $2.50 with a 4% change over the last 24 hours.
