—The XRP Ledger (XRPL) suffered a rare outage on Feb. 4, halting block production for nearly an hour before recovering without major interventions. Ripple’s chief technology officer, David Schwartz, confirmed the issue, stating that while consensus remained operational, validations were not being published, causing the network to drift apart. XRP Ledger Halts at LedgerXRPL suffered a rare outage on Feb. 4, halting block production for an hour before recovering. XRP price dropped 10% amid market concerns.){kind=link}
NAIROBI (CoinChapter.com)—The XRP Ledger (XRPL) suffered a rare outage on Feb. 4, halting block production for nearly an hour before recovering without major interventions. Ripple’s chief technology officer, David Schwartz, confirmed the issue, stating that while consensus remained operational, validations were not being published, causing the network to drift apart.
XRP Ledger Halts at Ledger Height 93,927,173
Block production stopped at ledger height 93,927,173, with validators unable to achieve consensus. Schwartz explained that servers eventually saw enough validations from multiple sources, enabling them to rebuild consensus and resume ledger progression. He noted that initial assessments suggested the network spontaneously recovered without significant external changes from Unique Node List (UNL) operators.
The outage has sparked concerns about whether past changes to the validator structure played a role. In 2023, Ripple reduced its control over the network, cutting its influence to just 2 out of 35 validators in an effort to promote decentralization.
Ripple Network Faces Technical Challenges
Schwartz emphasized that no assets were lost during the outage, though ledgers were not considered trusted for nearly an hour. This disruption follows other technical issues in recent months, including a node crash in Nov. 2024 and full history node failures in Sept. 2024, which required emergency patches.
On social media, XRP Ledger users debated the cause of the disruption. Daniel Keller, who refers to himself as the ‘CEO of the XRPL,’ confirmed that all 35 nodes continued proposing blocks, with a quorum of 28. Some users criticized the validator modifications, with one commenting,
“Knew removing Ripple’s UNL would backfire.”
Schwartz later provided an update, suggesting that only one validator operator manually intervened. However, he acknowledged that it remains unclear whether this action resolved the issue or if the network self-recovered.
XRP Price Crashes—Is the Bull Run in Danger?
The outage triggered a sharp sell-off in XRP, with prices dropping 10% to $2.45. The token had already faced volatility after former U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest trade tariffs, briefly falling to $2 over the weekend. It rebounded to nearly $2.80 on Feb. 4 before the network disruption added further downside pressure.
Derivatives data signals weak market confidence, with trading volume down 45.63% to $13.84 billion and open interest slipping 2.70% to $3.68 billion. The decline in derivatives activity suggests traders are reducing exposure, reinforcing the bearish momentum.
Despite this setback, XRP has still been one of the biggest winners in the ongoing crypto market rally. The token has surged almost 400% over the past year, with most gains occurring in the past three months. Optimism surrounding potential regulatory changes in the United States has fueled this momentum.
Ripple has yet to release a full post-mortem on the outage, but Schwartz confirmed that investigations are underway. Whether this was a one-off failure or a sign of deeper network fragility remains to be seen.