cryptokitties cryptokitties developers axiom zen release 2017 genres virtual pet cryptokitties is a blockchain based video game developed by axiom zen that allows players to purchase collect breed and sell various types of virtual cats background cryptokitties is not a cryptocurrency instead it operates on ethereums underlying blockchain network as a non fungible token nft unique to each cryptokitty each cryptokitty is unique and owned by the user validated through the blockchain and its value can appreciate or depreciate based on the market cryptokitties cannot be replicated and cannot be transferred without the users permission even by the game developers users can interact with their cryptokitties having the ability to buy sell and sire breed them a test version of cryptokitties was unveiled at eth waterloo on october 19 2017 the largest ethereum hackathon in the world as of december 2 2017 genesis the first and highest selling cat was sold for 2469255 eth 117712 usd on that day the virtual cats are breedable and carry a unique number and 256 bit distinct genome with dna and different attributes cattributes that can be passed to offspring on march 20 2018 it was announced that cryptokitties would be spun off into its own company and raised 12 million from several top venture capital firms and angel investors the investment round was led by new york based union square ventures and san francisco based andreessen horowitz in may 2018 cryptokitties launched their first celebritybranded cryptokitty with stephen curry an american professional basketball player in october 2018 cryptokitties reached the milestone of 1 million cats being bred with a volume of 32 million transactions on its smart contracts in 2018 cryptokitties will help the german museum zkm center for art and media karlsruhe explain blockchain technology a cryptokitties ownership is tracked via a smart contract on the ethereum blockchain cryptokitties are distributed automatically via smart contract at the rate of one every 15 minutes 672 per week for one year each cryptokitty is represented in the form of a nonfungible erc721 token which allows for each entity to have specific cattributes based on the limited number of cats going into circulation and their limited genomes there is a limit of 4 billion total cats that can be bred each cat will have a distinct visual appearance phenotype determined by its immutable genes genotype stored in the smart contract because cats are tokens on a blockchain they can be bought sold or transferred digitally with strong guarantees of ownership a cryptokitty does not have a permanently assigned gender while they can only engage in one breeding session at one time each cat is able to act as either matron or sire the owner chooses with each breeding interaction a group known as axiom zen innovation studio developed the game with the rest of supply determined by breeding of cryptokitties cryptokitty owners may put them up for sale via an auction for a price set in ether eth reception there are concerns that cryptokitties is crowding out more serious significant business that use the ethereum platform as of december 5 2017 etherscan has reported a sixfold increase in pending transactions on ethereum since the games release just a week earlier cryptokitties has become so popular that its taking up a significant amount of available space for transactions on the ethereum platform said garrick hileman from the university of cambridge official website vtecryptocurrenciestechnology atomic swap blockchain cryptocurrency tumbler cryptocurrency exchange cryptocurrency wallet cryptographic hash function distributed ledger fork lightning network smart contract consensus mechanisms proofofauthority proofofspace proofofstake proofofwork proofofwork currenciessha256based bitcoin bitcoin cash counterparty namecoin nxt peercoin steem ethashbased ethereum ethereum classic scryptbased bitcoin gold dogecoin feathercoin litecoin equihashbased zcash zcoin cryptonotebased bytecoin monero x11based dash petro proofofstake currencies ada eosio erc20 tokens aion augur basic attention token binance coin omisego other currencies bitshares filecoin nem neo primecoin ripple stellar tether related topics airdrop anonymous internet banking bitlicense blockchain game complementary currency cryptoanarchism cryptoeconomics digital currency doublespending bitcoin gold double spend attack initial coin offering initiative q stablecoin token money virtual currency category commons list 