The website hosting the official Matrix Resurrections non-fungible tokens (NFTs)⏤a form of digital collectibles⏤has crashed due to overwhelming demand ahead of the forthcoming action/sci-fi movie’s release later this month.
Earlier this month, Warner Bros. announced that it would mint 100,000 novel NFTs of Matrix-inspired avatars for $50 each on Nifty’s, an NFT marketplace hosting the sale, Variety reports.
In anticipation of the launch on 1pm ET Tuesday, hundreds of thousands of fans were lined up in the digital queue to buy the NFTs. Within just an hour hour of opening the site, the Nifty’s systems were so swamped that the company had to pause the sale, briefly restart it, then halt it again, leaving would-be purchasers in limbo overnight.
By noon ET Wednesday, more than 330,000 users were still waiting in the queue on Nifty’s website for the chance to buy the collectibles.
Nifty’s acknowledged in a social media post that the Nov. 30 launch of the Matrix avatars did not go “the way we had hoped it would.” Still, they contended via Twitter that “even as the queue continues to be paused, we want to ensure you all of a few things⏤we’re very actively working on a solution, along with our partners.”
The company went on to state that once it scaled to max capacity, they “encountered infrastructure issues, and our team is actively working on a solution with our cloud provider.” The recommended queue-holders add their email to the “Please notify me when it is my turn” field on its website in order to specifically be alerted when they made it to the front of the line.
The Matrix Resurrections arrives in theaters and on HBO Max Dec. 22.