The majority of altcoins dropped sharply Tuesday, while Bitcoin surged ahead on reports major exchange Poloniex was unable to cope with the demand.
As multiple altcoins shot up in price over the past two weeks, trading activity has increased with them.
Poloniex, which deals with many of the most popular assets, began showing signs of strain over the past 24 hours.
On social media, users were complaining about lag in trading and price data, transactions failing to complete and the site even failing to load altogether.
Panic selling thereafter has put major pressure on all the altcoins in the top ten and beyond, with prices declining by up to 38 percent in the case of Stellar’s Lumens token.
Bitcoin meanwhile continued its march towards the $2,000 mark, having beaten off fears of a correction at $1,600 to reach $1,791 on Coinmarketcap as of press time Tuesday.
Nonetheless, commentators are still warning of a reality check shortly to kick in. Vinny Lingham, who has often voiced concerns about the negative effects of swift price growth, tweeted Monday that those who “doesn't think we're in the middle of a Crypto bubble/manipulated market is naive.”
Ripple has a bigger market cap than Ethereum! Anyone who doesn't think we're in the middle of a Crypto bubble/manipulated market is naive.
— Vinny Lingham (@VinnyLingham) May 8, 2017
In an interesting counter-development, Tether’s token has managed to regain half the 10 percent it lost amid the Taiwanese banking difficulties to stand just four percent below parity with the dollar. Last month, it had fallen to $0.91.