Key Information

  1. CryptoKitties is a non-fungible token ERC #721 that is indivisible and unique.
  2. The smart contracts have over 4-billion variations of phenotypes (what you see) and genotypes (what you don’t see).
  3. CryptoKitties is built on the ethereum network; ether is necessary to fuel transactions, which include purchasing and breeding CryptoKitties.
  4. Two CryptoKitties can breed a new CryptoKitty offspring.

CryptoKitties Timeline

2010

Early 2010
CryptoKitties Lead Architect buys his first Bitcoin

2014

Summer 2014
Members of the CryptoKitties team participate (and win) the inaugural Money20/20 hackathon; two of their three projects are based on blockchain technology

2017

September 2017
CryptoKitties launches its alpha test at ETHWaterloo. Hundreds of users bred thousands of cats. The CryptoKitties team also won the ETHWaterloo hackathon with Rufflet, a blockchain analytics application

November 22, 2017
The CryptoKitties Smart Contract is deployed

November 23, 2017
CryptoKitties is one of the Top 3 most active Ethereum contracts within three hours of its closed beta launch

November 28, 2017
CryptoKitties launches 🎉

December 2, 2017
Genesis Cat CryptoKitty #1 is adopted!

December 5, 2017
Roughly 60k registered users
Nearly 100k cats exist
Over $5M USD in transactions processed so far
CryptoKitties accounts for roughly 25% of Ethereum traffic

December 12, 2017
150k+ registered users
$15M USD in transactions
260k+ cats exist

2018

January 2018
CryptoKitties hits 250,000 users

February 2018
500k+ cats exist

March 2018
CryptoKitties announces $12M in funding

May 2018
"Celestial Cyber Dimension" sells for US$140k
CryptoKitties Art Director Guile Gaspar creates exclusive art for Kitty #127 for public auction, with proceeds going to support intersection of art and blockchain

September 2018
1M+ cats exist

2019

January 2019
Gods Unchained partnership

February 2019
Race to 1.5 Million
A Token of Gratitude

2020

January 2020
Public Roadmap & Future Updates

Key Mechanics

CryptoKitties ownership will be tracked via a smart contract on the Ethereum blockchain. CryptoKitties will be distributed automatically, via smart contract, at the rate of one every 15 minutes (672 per week) for one year.

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.

Additionally, any two CryptoKitties can breed together to produce an offspring, which is a genetic combination of the two parents. In each pairing, one CryptoKitty will act as the sire and will have a short recovery period (which increases each time they sire) before being able to engage in another pairing. The other CryptoKitty will incubate the new kitten, during which it can’t engage in other breeding. After this gestation period, the CryptoKitten will be born and its genotype and phenotype revealed. This new CryptoKitten will be automatically assigned to the owner of the dame cat at the time of birth. Both the mother and the new CryptoKitten will being available for further breeding immediately after birth.

Note: CryptoKitties do 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.

Contract Structure

The Core CryptoKitties smart contract will track the genotype and ownership of all CryptoKitties. Because of the difficulty of amending or replacing smart contracts, we will endeavour to split as much functionality out from the Core Contract as possible into “library” contracts.

The Core Contract is responsible for the following activities:

  1. Keeping track of ownership and ownership transfers for all extant CryptoKitties (including newly bred cats)
  2. Keeping track of approved transfers and approved siring
  3. Providing a mechanism for transferring all information to a future Core Contract version (if some critical bug is discovered).
  4. Maintaining pointers to the current versions of all library contracts (which can be dynamically updated).

The day-one functionality of the library contracts includes:

  1. Keep track of the genes of upcoming gen0 CryptoKitties
  2. Introducing the genes of gen0 CryptoKitties to the Core Contract
  3. Launching the auctions for gen0 CryptoKitties (including price determination)
  4. Combining the genotypes of two parent CryptoKitties to determine the genotype of the new CryptoKitten.

All functionality for breeding, buying, selling, and transferring cats will be possible for any user by interacting directly with the smart contracts on the blockchain. Any auctions or sales conducted through our auction contract will include a 3.75% commission (no minimum) taken from the seller’s portion.