Ripple’s XRP Ledger (XRPL) is back up and running after a network disruption that halted transaction validations for over an hour. The unexpected outage, which occurred at block height 93927174, caused transactions to freeze for 64 minutes before being fully restored on February 4 at 10:58 AM UTC.
What Went Wrong?
According to Ripple CTO David Schwartz, while the consensus mechanism appeared to be working, transaction validations weren’t being published, causing the network to drift apart. To fix the issue, validator operators had to manually intervene, helping the ledger resynchronize and resume operations.
Was This a Centralization Issue?
Critics were quick to question XRPL’s decentralization, as all 35 nodes resumed validation simultaneously. Daniel Keller, CTO of XRPL node operator Eminence, pointed out that this highlights XRPL’s reliance on a small number of validators—a stark contrast to Ethereum’s 1 million+ active validators.
Did the Outage Affect Users?
Despite the disruption:
Customer funds remained safe, according to RippleX.
About 88,000 transactions were delayed, with XRPL typically handling 2 million transactions per day.
XRP’s price briefly dipped to $2.45 but rebounded 3.2% to $2.53 shortly after.
Bigger Picture: XRP’s Future as a U.S. Reserve Asset?
Interestingly, the network halt coincided with Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse’s push for XRP to be recognized as a U.S. reserve asset. Reports suggest that David Sacks, Trump’s crypto czar, is exploring the idea, which could be a game-changer for XRP’s role in the financial system.
What’s Next?
While XRPL is back online, this event has sparked fresh discussions about network resilience and centralization. With XRP already up 396% since Trump’s election victory, all eyes are now on its regulatory future and potential mainstream adoption.
