Ripple’s XRP Ledger encountered a temporary but significant disruption on February 5, 2025, resulting in a 64-minute outage that affected network operations. This interruption caused some concern among users and had an impact on the price of XRP, leading to a slight decrease in market sentiment.
The Cause of the Outage
According to Ripple’s Chief Technology Officer, David Schwartz, the outage was caused by a phenomenon known as “network drift.” This occurred when the validations or block productions failed to be published, despite the network’s consensus process being in operation. As a result, the smooth flow of transactions on the network was halted for over an hour.
Schwartz mentioned that only one validator appeared to manually intervene to restore operations. However, it remained unclear whether the issue was resolved through this intervention or if the network “self-healed.” By “self-healing,” Schwartz referred to the XRP Ledger’s ability to recover by reaching an agreement on the next block with the participation of more than half of the validators, allowing the network to continue functioning seamlessly.
Impact on XRP Ledger Services
During the outage, wallet services on the XRP Ledger were temporarily affected. For instance, Xaman Wallet, a popular wallet for XRP users, experienced transaction failures. However, Schwartz assured users that no assets were lost despite the transactions not being processed correctly.
Although there were concerns raised about the network’s overall reliability, XRP did not experience significant losses in terms of funds.
Market Reaction to the Outage
Following the 64-minute downtime, the price of XRP briefly declined by approximately 6% during US trading hours on February 4. The asset struggled to maintain its position above the $2.50 level and fell below important moving averages on longer time frames. This downturn contributed to a broader bearish sentiment in the market, which was further compounded by the weak overall trend in the crypto market at that time.
Some analysts criticized the performance of the XRP network, with figures like MartyParty questioning its throughput. MartyParty pointed out that XRP can only handle a maximum of 20 transactions per second (tps), suggesting that this low throughput could hinder the network’s ability to scale and compete with other blockchain solutions. These concerns added to the pressure on XRP’s market performance, although the asset did not face any fundamental issues such as asset loss.
XRP’s Struggles Amid Broader Market Sentiment
The disruption occurred during a time when Bitcoin (BTC) was facing resistance around the $100K level and experiencing a price pullback. This rejection at a key resistance point also affected the broader cryptocurrency market, putting additional pressure on altcoins like XRP.
Currently, XRP’s price remains below key moving averages, reinforcing the short-term bearish outlook for the asset. Market participants are eagerly awaiting further developments, particularly in light of upcoming events such as the US Jobs report on February 7, which could influence broader market sentiment.
Despite the technical hiccup and market turbulence, Ripple’s swift response in restoring the XRP Ledger is commendable. However, in order to maintain investor confidence and market support, addressing concerns regarding the network’s throughput will be crucial as it strives for long-term scalability and efficiency.
