An invention intended for one purpose can often lead to a host of other unintended but altogether exciting prospects, this has happened to a multitude of inventions throughout human history and most recently to Blockchain as well. One cannot help but wonder if the original thinkers behind Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain could ever envision the day that a Cryptocurrency-based cat would retail for over £80 000. Well, we definitely were left lost for words as a staggering £19 million worth of Crypto Cats have been sold just in 2018 alone and the year has only just gotten halfway.
Meet the CryptoKitties
Cats seem to have a unique space within the human condition, from the ancient Egyptians right through to the halls of the internet; these furry felines always seem to put a smile on the face of humanity. However, while cat memes and YouTube videos of cats attempting to catch the elusive red dot are still raging fires within the hearts of many, there is now another far more novel and expensive cat out there though. Meet the CryptoKitties, these beloved little kittens are a game where people can look after their own virtual kitty in a fully secure, blockchain protected environment.
Enter the Playbook
The game works by allowing people to trade the kittens through the transacting of Ethereum tokens, the reason for the choice of Ethereum over Bitcoin was simple. Ethereum comes standard with the feature of Smart Contracts, through these intuitive agreements Ethereum is not only the method by which the payment is exchanged but also the overseer of the transaction which eliminates quite a lot of strain on the market. The game initially began to spike in attention during the final two months of 2017 when the vast majority of the world was captured by Bitcoin fever.
During these two months the traction on the CryptoKitties game grew to such an extent that the level of traffic CryptoKitties was receiving managed to reduce their hosts network speed to a snail’s pace. Even though the level of users has dropped slightly since the end of last year, the total number of virtual cats sold via the game amounts to £19 million or $25 million USD. Just after March this year, the owners of CryptoKitties shared with the media how they were going to make plans to push CryptoKitties forward into a global scale, removing the barriers that users in other countries may have to accessing the platform.
The Game Plan
The objective of CryptoKitties is for the owner of the virtual cat to purchase a cat, look after it, breed it with other cats and finally trade the cat with other prospective breeders on the site. CryptoKitties is certainly not the first gaming house to decide to create a game centered upon the raising and looking after animals, however they are certainly doing very well. The winning formula for this Blockchain based powerhouse is that users don’t simply buy the game, oh no, they have to pay for each and every event, with average user spend sitting on £45. Now that is one expensive kitty.
