XRP Ledger records 3x spike in number of ledgers; community speculates reasons behind ‘anomaly’

XRP Ledger exhibited a massive spike in the number of ledgers on March 22, 2019, when the number surged from an average of 23,000 to a whopping 75,000. This spike was accompanied by a decrease in the ledger close interval, which led many XRP enthusiasts in the community to speculate a number of possible reasons.

The mysterious spike caused some to speculate that it could be the Cobalt update going live and if implemented, Cobalt would effectively reduce the ledger close interval to a second or less. Considering the current 3-4 second ledger close interval time, Cobalt would be a massive upgrade.

However, Cobalt’s lead developer, Ethan MacBrough, confirmed that it wasn’t Cobalt; had it been Cobalt, the XRP Ledger would have to be updated, an upgrade that wouldn’t be done without prior notification, he added.

Some people speculated that the anomaly could be due to SBI Group testing internal remittances. A Twitter user, @StewXRP commented,

“Lower friction corridors? Or maybe even testing internal remittances like SBI are reportedly going to do with the money tap app?
You’ll know when cobalt is live because that shit ain’t going to just happen, its going to be a large unveiling”

@marccwr, another Twitter user, commented,

“What’s the most weird of all is that the #XRPcommunity starts to “guess” as nobody knows what exactly happened
#XRPLedger a public network?
Not really…. as it seems only @Ripple and guys like @JoelKatz or @nbougalis probably knowing but not telling the interesting detail ;-)”

Nik Bougalis, a cryptographer and a software engineer at Ripple, replied to the above and put the whole issue to rest. He tweeted,

“As I tweeted yesterday, the xrpcharts backend was down a short period of time. The XRP Ledger, of course, continued operating so when xrpcharts came back, it had to backfill. The “spike” is likely an artifact caused by the backfill and is not indicative of anything.”

If true, XRP enthusiasts would have nothing to worry about as it was nothing, but an anomaly. However, if there was actually something going on and needed to be kept a secret, an “anomaly” claim would be the best thing to cover it up, opined many enthusiasts.