CryptoKitties causes Congestion On Ethereum Blockchain
CryptoKitties - is a new game built on the Ethereum Blockchain has caused a massive spurt on the network and is said to be responsible for clogging up the Ethereum network. All the other transactions on the network are getting delayed and the pile of unprocessed transactions has multiplied by six times ever since the launch of this game on Nov 28.
CryptoKitties is a virtual Kitten breeding game that makes use of smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain. Described as “cryptocollectibles” by the CryptoKitties website, a user can buy, sell and even trade these kittens. All the records of the purchase will be stored as a permanent receipt on the Ethereum blockchain. The current average cat on CryptoKitties is trading for 100 Ether.
This game has caught the frenzy of users to such an extent that just in seven days of its launch, the game has emerged as the largest decentralized application (dapp), using the Ethereum protocol by gas consumption. Experts say that if crypto-nets continue to play this game on the Ethereum blockchain, it has the capacity to completely choke the network in which case it will force users to set higher gas prices or force miners to increase the gas limit by a considerable amount.
As per ETH Gas Station, CryptoKitties is currently having the busiest address on Ethereum network which accounts for nearly 14% of the transaction volumes in the past 1500 blocks. As a result, CryptoKitties has even surpassed other exchange like EtherDelta in terms of gas consumption.
However, sighting the existing issues of network consumption, CryptoKitties soon took to their Twitter handle and announced: “Due to network congestion, we are increasing the birthing fee from 0.001 ETH to 0.002 ETH. This will ensure your kittens are born on time! The extra is needed to incentivize miners to add birthing txs to the chain. Long-term solution will be explored very soon!”
Anyone on the Ethereum network can purchase and sell kittens while playing the CryptoKitties game. Moreover, the decentralized Ethereum network prevents any sort of alteration of ownership and creation of fraudulent kittens. The game’s unique model and strategy has attracted several members of the global cryptocurrency community.
Even Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin expressed a casual endorsement to the game by tweeting: "I actually like the digital cat games. They illustrate very well that the value of a blockchain extends far beyond applications that would literally get shut down by banks or governments if they did not use one.”
While such situation brings one thing to the surface, that if one particular blockchain has to be used for several applications, a lot of work needs to be done on the ground level to solve issues relating to scalability.