XRP Ledger's Hour-Long Halt: Network Recovers on Its Own

XRP Ledger Recovers After Hour-Long Block Production Halt

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.

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