Ethereum (ETH) experienced a wave of intense volatility on Tuesday, which caused it to trade as low as $0.10 per coin.
This is due to a combination of factors, including a major sell order and two ICOs, which in turn contributed to network congestion and technical problems at exchanges.
Most severely hit was Coinbase’s GDAX exchange, which saw a 96,100 ETH sell order. “This resulted in orders being filled from $317.81 to $224.48, translating into a book slippage of 29.4%,” explained a subsequent blog post by Ice President Adam White.
“This slippage started a cascade of approximately 800 stop-loss orders and margin funding liquidations, causing ETH to temporarily trade as low as $0.10.”
Signs of strain surfaced elsewhere, with charts showing a dramatic but short-lived dive in ETH to around $13 at GDAX widely circulated.
Tuesday also saw the highly-popular initial round of Vinny Lingham’s Civic ICO. Soon after it began, Lingham announced the sale had been paused due to the Ethereum network being “clogged.”
A concurrent ICO from Status meanwhile was criticized by investors and onlookers for its inadequate structure, which contributed to network instability.
“The badly designed Status ICO clogged up the network yesterday with a huge number of high gas fee transactions, most of which are failing but still filling up the blocks and preventing normal tx's from getting in,” u/emansipater commented on Reddit.
ETH since recovered to trade around $335, down only modest amount on the same time yesterday.