The XRP Ledger (XRPL) was briefly unavailable early Wednesday due to a consensus mechanism failure that halted network operations.

The issue started when the consensus process was functioning, but validations were not being published, forcing the ledgers to drift apart.

In the XRP Ledger, consensus among validators is essential to update the ledger with new transactions. If validators can’t agree on transactions to include, the network halts. A “drift” refers to a failure where the consensus protocol operates but validations (confirmations of transaction sets) are absent.

A validator operator intervened to reset the network’s consensus to an earlier state, although Ripple CTO David Schwarz mentioned that the network seemed to resolve the issue on its own. He elaborated:

“It’s likely that servers refused to send validations precisely because they knew something was wrong. And wanted to ensure no server accepted a ledger as fully validated when they couldn’t be sure the network would retain and eventually agree on that ledger.”

“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.”

Fortunately, no assets were at risk during this outage, as XRP prices remained stable alongside broader market movements.