The digital world has been witnessing a lot of eerie trends in technology ever since its origin. Few years back, it was all a matter of fiction when one talked about people seeing each other while sitting in different parts of the world, through interfaces that we refer to as smart phones today. Advanced technologies such as Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and Blockchain have become mainstream. That being said, the applications of these advanced technologies never fail to surprise a common man. Talking about which, we are here to discuss about the newest Blockchain game called Cryptokitties.
Not long ago, Blockchain disrupted various sectors like Finance, Banking and other money related domains. Who would have thought that we will play games built in Blockchain so soon. Cryptokitties, as done in dumb charades, can be broken into two different names to understand the meaning “Crypto” and “Kitty”. Cryptokitties is a game build in Ethereum and smart contracts which revolves around the concept of collecting digital kitties which are nothing but digital assets that are stored in Ethereum. A single Cryptokitty, unlike the actual currency token, can be seen as a unique ERC-721 token saved on Ethereum.
Kitties are stored on distributed computer network as Cryptokitties is a decentralized application (DApp). Using Ether cryptocurrency token, people can buy and sell Cryptokitties. Every Cryptokitty has a different set of cattributes contributing to its uniqueness in terms of characters and looks. The rare kind of Cryptokitties also possess some rare cattributes called mewtations. Other than buying and selling crypotkitties, one can also breed the Cryptokitties to build a new kitty. The first ever Cryptokitty took birth on 2nd December, 2017 and it is called the “genesis cat”. It lead to the revolution of generation 0 kitties that are born every fifteen minutes. It is said that the last kitty of the generation 0 will be produced in November of this year. Kitties produced after that will be only through breeding.
Cryptokitty breeding is unlike normal breeding that involves different sexes. To breed new kitties, the owner of parent Cryptokitties must agree. For this process, one Cryptokitty plays the role of the dame and the other one plays the role of the sire. The roles can change in every breeding that the Cryptokitties go through. One benefit that the owner of dame holds is the ownership of the newly produced offspring kitten. In order to breed again, Cryptokitties have to cooldown to take rest and that cooldown speed differs from one Cryptokitty to another.
To specify this in technical terms, Cryptokitty breeding involves trading of the digital cats using smart contracts. These small contracts are built on Ethereum which implies that owners need to pay in Ether cryptocurrency in order to complete the breeding. The payment made in Ether records the activities in Ethereum and also rewards bonus to people who are operating Ethereum nodes for the network.
Blockchain Is The Driving Force
Apparently, Cryptokitties has a lot of fancy terminology associated with it. People might see it like any other game where players maintain their collections of certain collectible items, in this case Cryptokitties. The extraordinary thing about this game is that it is all Blockchain underneath the entire game.
Since, the digital kitty game runs on Blockchain, the digital cats are stored on Blockchain rather than some company’s centralised servers. Thus, your digital cat belongs to you only and no other organization can take it away from you, not even when the company that launched Cryptokitties shut down.
If you own any Bitcoins, you must be aware of using the private key stored in wallet using which you are able to spend Bitcoins as currency. In similar way, you will store private key for your purchased Cryptokitty in your wallet. Therefore, we can say that your Cryptokitties are stored in your digital wallets.
Are Cryptokitties Worth Spending So Much?
Well, people tend to spend on things they like, even if they are not of any real use to them. Especially this digitalization has lead to plethora of strangely different buying trends among different generations. In 2016, there was a news about a man spending $54,970 on a rare Pokémon card but that is completely for a person who is nuts about Pokémons. Same is the case with Cryptokitties who are already popular among the Blockchain enthusiasts. They are willing to play a lot and by a lot I mean A LOT. As a matter of fact, they don’t want to lose on something that is unique to possess and will only be produced in limited numbers i.e. 50,000 of “generation 0”. Moreover, the kitties will continue to be theirs even if Axiom Zen shuts down in future.
Playing Cryptokitties
To begin playing with Cryptokitties, visit the Cryptokitties website. First, you will have to install MetaMask extension in your browser. It works as a secure digital wall that will hold your Cryptokitties. While setting your password and seed words, make sure you are putting something that you won’t ever forget which otherwise would lead to you losing all your kitties and Ether currency, just like in case of Bitcoins.
If you are from the United States, they you can buy Ether in MetaMask directly and then use the same to pay for Cryptokitties game. But in case, you are outside the States, then you will need to buy Ether from a cryptocurrency exchange and then send it to MetaMask wallet.
To get you started, you can also choose to buy your first Cryptokitty at an auction. The prices for rare and in-demand Cryptokitties is very high and you do not need to spend so much in your first go. The starting kitties are available at 0.003 ETH which is 0.63 US Dollars as of September, 2018.
The Game Has Just Begun (Meow)
Cats have been a favorite of humans since ages and we are now obsessed with these creatures in the virtual world as well. Recently, a man spent $170,000 to purchase a Cryptokitty named Dragon. It has become the most expensive kitty ever sold till date by breaking the record of Founder Cat #18 which was sold at $110,000 in December, 2017.
The birth of one millionth Cryptokitty is already in process and the recent achievement by Dragon has changed things for good. There was almost negligible engagement since January 2018 but the recent news has brought a considerable change in average Cryptokitty prices and the trading volume.
