In a statement explaining the recent outages, Bitfinex said that the  Ethereum  Ethereum Ethereum is an open source, blockchain-based distributed computing platform and operating system featuring smart contract functionality. Created in 2014, Ethereum now stands as the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap at the time of writing.As a decentralized cryptocurrency network and software platform, Ethereum represents the most prominent altcoin. Ethereum also enables the creation Distributed Applications, or dapps. Understanding EthereumEthereum boasts its own programming language, called Turing Complete, which is used to build the dapps. Dapps run on a peer-to-peer (P2P0 network of virtual machines. These can be just about anything and are optimized to run on Smart Contracts. Smart Contracts are pieces of code that execute a predetermined set of actions once a certain set of criteria are met. The Ethereum network’s native currency is called Ether, or ETH. ETH tokens can be used to pay for things inside of dapps or to receive payouts from smart contracts. They can also be traded off of the Ethereum network inside of cryptocurrency exchanges or OTC trading platforms. For most of its lifetime, Ethereum has remained as the second-largest and most popular cryptocurrency in terms of its market cap. It was briefly outpaced by Bitcoin Cash near the end of 2017.Ethereum’s origin dates back to late 2013 when crypto researcher and programmer Vitalik Buterin proposed its utility.Its development was subsequently funded by an online crowdsale that took place in the middle of 2014 before going live in July 2015. At its inception, Ethereum went live with 72 million coins minted, accounting for approximately 65 percent of its total circulating supply as of May 2020.Like other cryptos, Ethereum has had a checkered past, resulting in splits. Back in 2016, an exploited vulnerability in The DAO project's smart contract software caused the theft of $50 million worth of ether.As a result, Ethereum was split into two separate blockchains – a newer and separate version became known as Ethereum (ETH), while the original chain continued to be known as Ethereum Classic (ETC). Ethereum is an open source, blockchain-based distributed computing platform and operating system featuring smart contract functionality. Created in 2014, Ethereum now stands as the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap at the time of writing.As a decentralized cryptocurrency network and software platform, Ethereum represents the most prominent altcoin. Ethereum also enables the creation Distributed Applications, or dapps. Understanding EthereumEthereum boasts its own programming language, called Turing Complete, which is used to build the dapps. Dapps run on a peer-to-peer (P2P0 network of virtual machines. These can be just about anything and are optimized to run on Smart Contracts. Smart Contracts are pieces of code that execute a predetermined set of actions once a certain set of criteria are met. The Ethereum network’s native currency is called Ether, or ETH. ETH tokens can be used to pay for things inside of dapps or to receive payouts from smart contracts. They can also be traded off of the Ethereum network inside of cryptocurrency exchanges or OTC trading platforms. For most of its lifetime, Ethereum has remained as the second-largest and most popular cryptocurrency in terms of its market cap. It was briefly outpaced by Bitcoin Cash near the end of 2017.Ethereum’s origin dates back to late 2013 when crypto researcher and programmer Vitalik Buterin proposed its utility.Its development was subsequently funded by an online crowdsale that took place in the middle of 2014 before going live in July 2015. At its inception, Ethereum went live with 72 million coins minted, accounting for approximately 65 percent of its total circulating supply as of May 2020.Like other cryptos, Ethereum has had a checkered past, resulting in splits. Back in 2016, an exploited vulnerability in The DAO project's smart contract software caused the theft of $50 million worth of ether.As a result, Ethereum was split into two separate blockchains – a newer and separate version became known as Ethereum (ETH), while the original chain continued to be known as Ethereum Classic (ETC). Read this Term network was experiencing “high congestion” for an unusual reason: “blame the kitties, not us,” the exchange said, rather cryptically.

The kitties, of course, belong to the viral, Ethereum-based game, CryptoKitties. The game, which was developed by AxiomZen, was described by Inc as “a mixture of pokemon and Ethereum". Players create, take care of, buy, breed, and sell digital kittens that are stored in the Ethereum blockchain.

In a way, the kitties function as a sort of cryptocurrency themselves. According to Fortune, each kitty is a “unique, immutable object traded over  Blockchain  Blockchain Blockchain comprises a digital network of blocks with a comprehensive ledger of transactions made in a cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin or other altcoins.One of the signature features of blockchain is that it is maintained across more than one computer. The ledger can be public or private (permissioned.) In this sense, blockchain is immune to the manipulation of data making it not only open but verifiable. Because a blockchain is stored across a network of computers, it is very difficult to tamper with. The Evolution of BlockchainBlockchain was originally invented by an individual or group of people under the name of Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008. The purpose of blockchain was originally to serve as the public transaction ledger of Bitcoin, the world’s first cryptocurrency.In particular, bundles of transaction data, called “blocks”, are added to the ledger in a chronological fashion, forming a “chain.” These blocks include things like date, time, dollar amount, and (in some cases) the public addresses of the sender and the receiver.The computers responsible for upholding a blockchain network are called “nodes.” These nodes carry out the duties necessary to confirm the transactions and add them to the ledger. In exchange for their work, the nodes receive rewards in the form of crypto tokens.By storing data via a peer-to-peer network (P2P), blockchain controls for a wide range of risks that are traditionally inherent with data being held centrally.Of note, P2P blockchain networks lack centralized points of vulnerability. Consequently, hackers cannot exploit these networks via normalized means nor does the network possess a central failure point.In order to hack or alter a blockchain’s ledger, more than half of the nodes must be compromised. Looking ahead, blockchain technology is an area of extensive research across multiple industries, including financial services and payments, among others. Blockchain comprises a digital network of blocks with a comprehensive ledger of transactions made in a cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin or other altcoins.One of the signature features of blockchain is that it is maintained across more than one computer. The ledger can be public or private (permissioned.) In this sense, blockchain is immune to the manipulation of data making it not only open but verifiable. Because a blockchain is stored across a network of computers, it is very difficult to tamper with. The Evolution of BlockchainBlockchain was originally invented by an individual or group of people under the name of Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008. The purpose of blockchain was originally to serve as the public transaction ledger of Bitcoin, the world’s first cryptocurrency.In particular, bundles of transaction data, called “blocks”, are added to the ledger in a chronological fashion, forming a “chain.” These blocks include things like date, time, dollar amount, and (in some cases) the public addresses of the sender and the receiver.The computers responsible for upholding a blockchain network are called “nodes.” These nodes carry out the duties necessary to confirm the transactions and add them to the ledger. In exchange for their work, the nodes receive rewards in the form of crypto tokens.By storing data via a peer-to-peer network (P2P), blockchain controls for a wide range of risks that are traditionally inherent with data being held centrally.Of note, P2P blockchain networks lack centralized points of vulnerability. Consequently, hackers cannot exploit these networks via normalized means nor does the network possess a central failure point.In order to hack or alter a blockchain’s ledger, more than half of the nodes must be compromised. Looking ahead, blockchain technology is an area of extensive research across multiple industries, including financial services and payments, among others. Read this Term.”

The game launched with 100 founder kitties. Each one of the founder kitties could partner with another to produce an offspring with its own unique, 256-bit genome; individual kitties can also sire new kitties that can then be sold to other players. Additionally, the Ethereum blockchain will continue to generate a 'Gen 0' kitty every fifteen minutes until November of 2018.

The Gen 0 kitties are sold at prices based on the amount that the last five kitties were sold at, plus an additional fifty percent. The price of a Gen 0 kitty will continue to decline for up to 24 hours, if the kitty remains on the market. Every time a cryptokitty is sold from one user to another, AxiomZen collects a fat 3.75% of the transaction amount.

While the premise may seem a little silly to some, the profits are nothing to laugh at. According to a report from Inc, players have already spent more than $4.5 million on the game. One CryptoKitty sold for more than $117,000; the average kitty will cost you about $90.

Kitties Are Causing Serious Congestion on BTC and ETH Exchanges Right Meow

Despite the fun and games (and potential profits), the CryptoKitties may be causing real issues for Ethereum. The game has become so popular that it is responsible for about 15% of all traffic on the Ethereum network. Fortune reported that this is roughly 8% more popular than EtherDelta, the next-largest smart contract on Ethereum.

According to a report from BitNovosti, reddit users reached out to the developers of CryptoKitties, asking them to pause the game “for some hours” in order to ease the ETH network’s congestion and the high fees that came with it. “There is a huge backlog and it needs to be cleared,” one user wrote.

Is the sudden presence of hundreds of beanie-baby like entities on the Ethereum blockchain a sign of a crypto bubble? Maybe. The appearance of a popular game that was written to operate on the Ethereum blockchain certainly means something, if nothing but a step closer to popular culture. In any case, just like beanie babies and pokemon - someone is making a lot of money off of this.