What used to be euphoria has fizzled into despair as the price of Ethereum (ETH) has taken a dive from a June high of US$400 down to US$240. Media outlets covering the crash allegated that it was due to “technical difficulties” that clogged the Ethereum network, causing significant delays in processing transactions.

The sheer volume of transactions from Initial Coin Offerings, or ICOs, significantly tested the Ethereum network to its breaking point. There were two weak factors at play: ICO frameworks and sophisticated fee estimation algorithms.

The scalability problem started escalating since June 1, tracing back to the Brave (BAT) token sale