XRP Ledger Sees Intermittent Slow Closes as Operators Investigate

The XRP Ledger closed ledgers at uneven speeds late Oct. 20 ET (early Oct. 21 UTC), potentially extending users’ waits for final transaction results as operators investigated the delays.

Completion times varied: some rounds lagged, while others moved at the usual pace. The network kept advancing ledgers during the period.

Ripple CTO emeritus David Schwartz has described two scenarios that could interrupt the network: a broad loss of validators or a problem in consensus software or another core function. He did not link either scenario to these delays.

Consensus rounds typically last four to six seconds. Each server assesses whether a ledger is validated using its own trusted validator list; the usual threshold is agreement from 80% of that list. If more than 20% of a server’s trusted validators become unavailable, it may lack enough votes to validate new ledgers.

Schwartz also said the slowdown made it difficult to assess his own hub’s performance. He wrote, “But the XRPL itself isn't affected by outages of my hub or any other hub.” Operators were investigating the intermittent delays.