We see this notice sent out of shapeshift ... some ethereum assets are delayed as much as 10 hoours due to the overwhelming traffic on the ethereum blockchain. 300,000 transactions were completed yesterday but the number of failed transactions has skyrocketed.
The recent spade of ICO has exposed its biggest weakness, ethereum is not scale at this moment. It was not designed to handle this kind of traffic. The Status ICO today saw tons of failed contracts ... ethers were rejected and there were scores of gas issues ... it is becoming a fiasco. It is like the ICO is carrying out its very own DDOS attack on the ethereum blockchain.
Little wonder that the price has slipped below $350 today ... there is just so much frustration in the air now.
But can the much hype Raiden offchain payment channel come to the rescue? What about metropolis and casper which are several months late?
Little wonder too, LISK (ethereum 2.0) and Antshares (China Ethereum) are now thrown into the spotlight as alternatives.
There are other platforms like Waves which is something like a ICO as a service that is taking shape rapidly.
Overall, I think that Ethereum is posed to take over Bitcoin for the now. The flippering is due and Ether going to $500 and above soon is not a doubt, only a matter of time.
However, it needs to watch its back closely... who knows ... another platform that can scale and handle tens of thousands of transactions per second will be discovered ... wait ... there is already one ... flying under the Radar ... could it be NEM or XEM?
Who knows. Only time can tell.
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