XRP Ledger Suffers Hour-Long Outage Before Recovery: Ripple CTO Says 'Silent Network' Failure Didn't Impact User Funds
The XRP Ledger (XRPL), the blockchain network that powers XRP XRP/USD, experienced an unprecedented hour-long interruption in block production on Tuesday before spontaneously recovering, according to Ripple‘s Chief Technology Officer David Schwartz. What Happened: “The network is now recovering. We don’t know exactly what caused the issue yet,” Schwartz posted on X. He suggested the disruption might have stemmed from a “silent network” failure mode, where validators stopped publishing validations while consensus mechanisms continued running. The network is now recovering. We don't know exactly what caused the issue yet.Super-preliminary observation: It looked like consensus was running but validations were not being published, causing the network to drift apart. Validator operators manually intervened to choose a…— David "JoelKatz" Schwartz (@JoelKatz) February 4, 2025 The incident marks a notable disruption for the XRP Ledger, which has processed over 70 million ledgers since its 2012 launch. During the outage, no validated ledgers were lost, though tentative ledgers were discarded as part of normal protocol operations. The XRP Ledger’s unique Federated Consensus mechanism, which relies on over 150 independent validators worldwide, played a key role in the recovery. Some validator operators manually intervened to establish a new starting point after the last fully validated ledger, though Schwartz noted that “very few UNL operators actually made any changes.” See Also: Gold Outshines Bitcoin As Trump’s Gaza Plan, US-China Tensions Fuel Rally—Peter Schiff Calls It ‘Extremely Bullish’ Why It Matters: This disruption comes as particularly significant given XRPL’s reputation for reliability and its growing importance in various financial applications. The network, known for processing 1,500 transactions per second with 3-5 second settlement times, has become integral to payments, tokenization, DeFi, and CBDC initiatives. For investors, while the incident highlights potential vulnerabilities in distributed ledger systems, the network’s swift recovery and built-in safety mechanisms demonstrated its resilience. No user funds were affected during the interruption, as the system’s safety protocols prevented the acceptance of unverified transactions. “This is the “silent network” failure,” Schwartz said. One possible failure mode for XRPL is if all the validators think something's wrong with the network, all refuse to send any validations, and then there's no chatter to let the network reconverge. This is the "silent network" failure.XRPL has safeties both to prevent and…— David "JoelKatz" Schwartz (@JoelKatz) February 5, 2025 The development team continues to investigate the root cause of the disruption, with Schwartz emphasizing the preliminary nature of current observations. Read Next: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin Drops As Trump’s ‘Crypto Czar’ Announces Oversight Committee: Eric Trump Says ‘Great Time’ To Add ETH Image Via Shutterstock Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs© 2025 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.