Ethereum network has been DDOS'd by the status.im ICO. Quite a number of transactions still aren't going through and a lot of exchanges have their ETH wallets in 'maintenance' mode.
This is the transaction traffic as compared with other ICOs.
However, the traffic is not the issue (because Ethereum can scale). The problem is that the way the status contract code was set up, it encourages people to keep submitting the transaction so they can get the next release of open spots. Essentially, a DDoS attack in the form of an ICO.
In comparison, the most number of Bitcoin transactions in a day was about 350,000, which works out to 3.79 transactions per second. Ethereum does Bitcoin's highest as its daily average, and on the 18th did over 5 per second. Ethereum has all but overtaken Bitcoin in market cap.
(For those that aren't aware of what Ethereum is, exactly, it's a giant distributed computer that can execute code called 'contracts' on nodes around the world.)
The upside of this is that it will attract more innovation to Ethereum and also lead to more excitement around Ethereum-listed tokens (which, right now, isn't many). This drives up the price of Ethereum which will also be a driver for the Good Karma market cap, which will expand the economy as more people want to hold Ethereum-paired tokens rather than BTC-priced coins.) The average market cap for Ethereum-based coins is $70m, which is nearly double the average market cap of CounterParty, NXT, Waves, Bitshares, and Omni
combined.
There is a bright future ahead for GOOD, especially when we can easily interact with other contracts. Imagine Good Karma and Toyota partnering up so that someone gets free GOOD when they buy one of their hybrid cars. Things like that can really only work on Ethereum.
For this issue, Ethereum will likely come out with a fix so that this kind of thing doesn't happen again, and the price will go up another 3,000% like it did last year (my prediction) and become the first trillion-dollar entity. (No, I'm not kidding. My reasoning behind this is that every business and corporation that transacts with Ethereum will need to purchase ETH, driving up the price. When Singapore is about the release an Ethereum token to use as it's national digital currency, Russia is planning to do the same, Toyota and Microsoft are involved in the Ethereum alliance, and JP Morgan is working on putting bonds on Ethereum, then you know it's going to be far, far bigger than it is today. It will leave other platforms in the dust and is my main reason for using Ethereum for Good Karma.)
Growing pains, just like the early internet, electricity-as-a-service, the automobile, and modern banking.
We'll get it straightened out. I'm checking every hour or so.
Thanks for your patience