Ripple launched the $XRP Ledger in June 2012 and lost all data by New Year's Eve due to a bug that caused ledger headers not to be saved.
All servers running at the time had the same bug, according to founder @JoelKatz.
Here's what happened... 🧵
The first verifiable ledger is 32,570 on January 1, 2013, which founders relabeled as the "Genesis ledger."
Without the missing headers, the public cannot reconstruct 534 transactions from those early ledgers, including the most important ones in XRP's history.
Those lost transactions include the $XRP pre-mine: founders created 100 billion coins by fiat, allocated 80% to Ripple companies and kept 20% for themselves.
All XRP users today must trust statements from people who operated the network in 2012 about these massive allocations.
Ripple engineers attempted recovery in 2013 using backups but couldn't reassemble the ledgers to match cryptographic proofs.
The missing data problem resurfaced this year when the XRP Ledger automatically halted for 64 minutes on February 5, 2025 due to validator disagreement.
Currently, just 33 validators on the XRPL Foundation's Unique Node List rule the XRP Ledger, compared to Bitcoin's 23,000+ internet-connected full nodes.
🔴 We’re live tweeting today’s US House joint committee hearing.
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Today's hearing is entitled: "The Future of Digital Assets: Measuring the Regulatory Gaps in the Digital Asset Markets" and more details can be found here: financialservices.house.gov/calendar/event…
Attached to this hearing is a new resolution, specifically "Resolution Expressing Support for Blockchain Technology and Digital Assets", a four page resolution which affirms the need for a new regulatory framework for digital assets docs.house.gov/meetings/BA/BA…
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Read Friday's news here:
1/ - Hard-partying crypto player Moshe Hogeg arrested for fraud, sex offenses protos.com/hard-partying-…
2/ This artist "right-clicked" a billion dollars worth of NFTs so you don't have to protos.com/this-australia…