Cats cause chaos on Ethereum again as Mila Kunis’ project sells out in 35 minutes

Tokenized cats have once again caused chaos on the Ethereum network after a nonfungible token (NFT) project from actress Mila Kunis sold out in 35 minutes.

It echoes the launch of another cat-based NFT project, CryptoKitties, which infamously gummed up the Ethereum network in 2017.

The launch of Stoner Cats was initially delayed by a day after the team found a bug in the underlying art layers. However, the second attempt was successful and sold out in just “35 meow-nutes,” according to a catastrophic pun from Stoner Cats.

We SOLD OUT in 35 meow-nutes! If you got a TOKEn, drop it here!

Gas prices soared as NFT collectors snapped up the first tranche of Stoner Cats, which had a cap of 10,420 NFTs at a price of 0.35 Ether (ETH) each, worth roughly $804 at the time of writing. According to the project’s website, another 3,000 new NFTs will be released over the course of the first season.

Decentralized finance analytics firm Defiprime joked that “as usual cats clogged Ethereum” on Twitter, and it shared on-chain data that showed a sharp spike in ETH gas fees ranging between 200 Gwei ($9.50) for a slow transaction and a hefty 709 Gwei ($33.67) for a rapid transaction.

$700k lost in Cats' failed TXs https://t.co/RczxG4xeAh

According to data from Dune Analytics, there was also a total of 344.4 ETH ($793,000) in value lost to failed Stoner Cats transactions.

Stoner Cats is an animated series that is backed by NFTs, and the characters are voiced by celebrities including Kunis, Jane Fonda, Ashton Kutcher, Seth MacFarlane and Chris Rock. The NFTs grant the owner access to watch the show, and the project uses NFT sales to finance its production.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin is also a voice actor for the character dubbed “Lord Catsinton,” who is described as a “spirit guide.”

lmao someone just paid 5.8 ETH (and used up 20% of a block in gas) for a failed tx trying to mint 20 stoner cats https://t.co/JfvRtiGkm9

Investors have now flocked to list the NFTs on OpenSea, and a StonerCat NFT depicting Buterin’s character is currently on sale for 77 ETH worth roughly $177,000 — a percentage markup of around 9,500%. An NFT depicting MacFarlane’s character is on sale for 420 ETH, or more than $960,000.

Related: Blockchain tech is holding NFTs back because of these three design flaws

The short-lived surge pales in comparison to CryptoKitties, however, which famously “broke Ethereum” back in 2017 after its launch was met with overwhelming demand.

Cointelegraph reported in May 2020 that a surprise CrypoKitties drop overwhelmed the Nifty NFT marketplace after an abundance of collectors flocked to the platform, which resulted in a series of service issues, such as slowness and failed transactions.