ALL PACKS ARE SOLD OUT!

Find the original post on the First Drop (MotoGP™ Ignition NFT First Card Pack Sale) here.

It took only short 17 minutes to sell out 9,500 packs. However, it was not a smooth ride. Here’s what happened.

PRE RACE: PROCEED WITH CAUTION

There was much anticipation in the First MotoGP™ Ignition drop going from the buzz in the MotoGP™ Ignition official Discord.

12:35 PM UTC, 25 March – 20 hours, 25 minutes to launch

The delay in opening up the wallet registration should have been a proceed-with-caution warning when that went live at 12:35 PM UTC. However, the excitement of a new launch far outweighs any warning signs for all if not most NFT collectors.

Additionally, it does not bode well when once it was opened for wallet registration; many who rushed to register got the “Preparing your Flow account” screen. It seemed that either the MotoGP™ Ignition site or the Blocto App have been unable to handle the sudden large volume of registrations causing a backlog. The advice given by the team was to ease off and try again at a later time. The Wallet will be valid as long as the registration is done before the launch.

STARTING LINE: THE CRASH - A MAJOR PILE-UP

9 AM UTC, 26 March – Scheduled Launch

So, how did the first MotoGP™ Ignition drop go? It was déjà vu. It was a pileup from the moment that the clock hit the 9 AM launch time. This time around, the excited early adopters got the dreaded “Purchase Pending” screen. The system couldn’t handle the large volume of purchases.

POST CRASH: DAMAGE CONTROL

9:22 AM UTC, 26 March – 22 minutes after launch

The team announced that there were 30,000 purchases in the queue but the Packs have already been sold out.

12:10 PM UTC, 26 March – 3 hours, 10 minutes after launch

The team updated that 800 had been processed with 70,000 purchases still in queue. The team assured that they will update again once the issue with the payment provider has been settled and everyone on queue has been cleared.

8:22 PM UTC, 27 March – 1 day, 11 hours, 22 minutes after the launch

Eleven hours after the launch, the team finally was able to make an announcement to confirm that all packs have been fully distributed. Great news to many who checked and wallet and had gotten pack or packs and disappointment for those who didn’t.

As you can imagine, with 70,000 purchases queued at the peak, there are bound to be many who have encountered issues. In fact, that was the case. There were those still spamming on not getting buy buttons on their devices during launch. Those who said they were charged but did not receive any pack, and those who are just being nasty resulting in the team putting comments on slow mode to mitigate massive spamming and focusing on actual issues that needed their attention.

3:53 AM UTC, 28 March – 1 day, 18 hours, 53 minutes after launch

The team made another announcement to address most questions asked and a summary of events to provide a better understanding on what had happened.

In short, the payment provider was overwhelmed with double than anticipated volume of transactions per second. You can read about the actual details in the attached image below.

As at the time of writing, the dust has pretty much settled. Looking back, despite the barrage of comments and cries for help in their official discord channel, the team that was the face to the angry mob did a fantastic job in handling the situation. Each one of the team was professional and none of them lost their cool. Well done, team MotoGP™ Ignition!

POST MORTEM

Both the Wallet Registration and the Launch ‘crash’ were caused by an inability to handle large the volume of processes. The latest hint of what’s in store for future drops was a comment made by @ProjectMotoGP in the #gameplay channel of the MotoGP™ Ignition Discord. In response to a comment, he or she mentioned that “We will have a queuing system or similar in place. But we'll be sure to announce all info ahead of time.”

It is safe to say that future drops will have a mechanism to streamline the sudden surge of buyers and to expect a ‘Waiting Room’ and hopefully a random ticket/turn generator to somewhat weed out bots, who otherwise will be at the front of the queue.

PARTING THOUGHTS

Regardless of how the launch turned out, it has been established that there is an overwhelming interest in MotoGP™ Ignition. Not surprising as it is the oldest motorsports in the world with a large fan base.

The second sale was originally scheduled for 9 April. It is now unsure if this will still be the case. It depends on whether proper drop mechanics could be put in place before then. Stay tuned here as I’ll update once it’s been confirmed.

Meanwhile, congratulations to all who’d gotten a pack or packs. The pack opening is on 21 April and I’m sure all are looking forward to that.