CryptoKitties Breaks Nifty Exchange with Surprise Drop

It’s been two years since the CryptoKitties game “broke” the Ethereum network it initially launched in, but now it seems to be doing the same for another network entirely. Quite recently, a new CryptoKitty token was launched, which caused a massive influx of traffic that overwhelmed the Nifty Exchange, an NFT exchange platform backed by Winklevoss.

The Artists Of the Crypto Industry

CryptoKitties stands as a viral crypto collectible game, wherein players can create unique “Kitties” through a system loosely based on genetics. In recent times, the game had launched 100 tokens that depicted “Catterina,” which is a new collectible, as drawn by Momo Wang, the game’s Brand Ambassador. CryptoKitties had put these new tokens on the Nifty Exchange, an exchange platform backed by Winklevoss.

It should be noted that Wang was the one who drew Tuzki, the ever-popular cartoon rabbit that’s shared millions of times a day across both WeChat and Facebook.

Demand For NFTs Still High

While it’s been more than two and a half years since CryptoKitties “broke” the Ethereum network, but the demand for non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, is as strong as it’s always been. The Nifty exchange, where these tokens were launched, had already started experiencing service disruptions as the countdown for the launch of the new tokens came closer. Within an hour of the limited run’s announcement, Nifty had stated that 100 users had signed up to the platform.

We've had over 100 user sign ups since the announcement went out about the special @CryptoKitties drop by Momo Wang … don't be late or you might miss out! https://t.co/uOsiGCCdOz

— Nifty Gateway Studio 🌐 (@niftygateway) May 14, 2020

Three hours later, and the surprise drop went live. After going live, it wasn’t long before Nifty posted that there was such an influx of users that a significant slowdown was to be experienced on the platform for many of its users. Within just three minutes of its launch, the 100 tokens that depicted Wong’s Catterina had already sold out.

WOW! All 100 of the Momo Wang CryptoKitties sold out in around 3 minutes.

Huge congrats to the @niftygateway for another successful NFT release. https://t.co/aTZG25VuQ8

— NFT Alert (@NFTalert) May 14, 2020

Overall Service Outage

Even so, Nifty’s service issues had continued to plague the exchange. Through an announcement, Nifty explained that its systems had experienced an “unanticipated volume” within this service drop. Due to this, according to the statement, some payment issues have risen up, as well. As such, Nifty stated that any individual that had their card charged, but didn’t receive a kitty, in turn, would be automatically refunded. Furthermore, anyone who had paid through Ether (ETH), but didn’t succeed would be refunded, as well.

Shortly after the sale, Nifty stated that one of the Catterina NFTs had managed to sell for $450 within a secondary market, showing that its value was very much in the upper margin.