On December 3rd, Stimpson J. Cat sold a digital cartoon kitten for $117,712. The kitten came from CryptoKitties, a new platform built on the Ethereum blockchain where users breed and trade virtual pet
On December 3rd, Stimpson J. Cat sold a digital cartoon kitten for $117,712. The kitten came from CryptoKitties, a new platform built on the Ethereum blockchain where users breed and trade virtual pets. The sale shows how the application has captured the cryptocurrency world's attention in mere weeks.
Etherscan data shows CryptoKitties consumes 3.84 percent of all Ethereum network transactions—over 500,000 daily. That traffic comes from users buying kittens with Ether, the Ethereum cryptocurrency, then breeding them to chase rare genetic combinations. Buyers paid around $5,000 for other rare kittens and over $9,000 for some bred specimens on the peer-to-peer marketplace.
The blockchain ensures each kitten is unique and permanent. The CryptoKitties team describes the guarantee: "While CryptoKitties isn't a digital currency, it does offer the same security: each CryptoKitty is one-of-a-kind and 100% owned by you. It cannot be replicated, taken away, or destroyed."
Users generate new kittens by breeding existing ones, and the offspring inherit genetic traits from both parents. The game's architects built in 4 billion possible genetic combinations. Not all will surface during the application's lifespan, according to Mack Flavelle, the team lead running day-to-day operations. Flavelle explained: "I don't know if all of those cats will be discovered in the length of CryptoKitties' life cycle. I think it'd probably destroy the Ethereum network if they are. There are also hundreds of fancy cats so all of our cats are procedurally generated. Genes just like real genes get passed from parents to children and you get some from the parents of both sides but with the right genetic combination, you can unlock these fancy cats."
Ryan Hoover, founder of the product discovery platform ProductHunt (acquired by AngelList), sees CryptoKitties as "a modern day Pokemon with cats on the blockchain." The game joins a growing roster of blockchain-based games aiming to build the mainstream audience that Pokémon Go achieved, but with a decentralized marketplace where players own and trade the actual assets.
The CryptoKitties team argues this model represents something fundamental about blockchain technology. The developers stated: "And we believe that blockchain is the future, but blockchain is about as approachable as a bunch of ones and zeroes. We want a future for everyone, not one exclusive to Bitcoin miners, VCs, ICOs, and other equally fun acronyms."
With CryptoKitties consuming 4 percent of Ethereum's daily transaction volume, the platform now ranks among the network's most significant applications. Whether it becomes the first blockchain game to achieve mainstream recognition in the broader cryptocurrency sector depends on sustaining this early momentum.
