CryptoKitties on Ethereum

From compkkart.

What are CryptoKitties

Hav you ever played Pokemon cards? Or maybe the Tamagotchi game? Then, CryptoKitties may be the blockchain game for you! This is an Ethereum-based blockchain game where us users can be able to collect and breed virtual cats, that we can sell for cryptocurrencies. Each cat that's in the game is entirely unique and cannot be replicated. I guess, in a much more modern sense, these CryptoKitties are actually NFTs.

These kittens are tradeable, with or without payments. This is a decentralized application that's running on Ethereum. This game is one of the firsts, if not the first, that's made for gaming use-case.

How This Game is Played

Everyone will start the game without kittens, the first step is to buy one from the marketplace. It's simple, really. Then to be able to breed more cats, you need 2 kittens to play with. Either get another kitten from the marketplace, or have someone else's kitten to breed with. Once you breed cats, you will get an egg that you can hatch to get a new kitten on your inventory. It's weird cause we all know kittens don't hatch from eggs, lol.

These new kittens are then part of newer generations, that's a stat that's encoded in the CryptoKitties' blockchain. There are also genders assigned to these kittens.

They're using a code called "Genetic Algorithm", that determines the gender and stats of the newer generation of kittens. It tries to mimic actual heredity in real life. Even when you breed the same parents multiple times, the siblings will not exactly be the same because of this algorithm.

From Coin Telegraph.

How this Algorithm and the Ethereum blockchain connect?

This process is called the crossover, when the new cats are produced. This happens because of the smart contracts on the ETH blockchain that allows these information to be stored and used to perform the crossover or breeding step.

These smart contracts are self-executing contracts that contains terms and conditions of an agreement. The terms and conditions of the agreement are written into code.

The CryptoKitties' smart contract is called the KittyCore - which is then broken down into more contracts namely:

• KittyBase is where all the information is stored so that it's available for viewing for the public.
• KittyBreeding is the code that combines the information from the parents to process the crossover to the babies.
• KittyOwnership controls the uniqueness of the a certain CryptoKitties' value.
• KittyAuction enables lending kittens for breeding and makes it possible to sell your kitties on the blockchain.
• KittyMinting is like the ICO for cats, the gen 0 ones were given for free using this contract.

Making Money on CryptoKitties:

Same as the current NFTs, the proof of scarcity and uniqueness is what gives these kittens their value. Now, the users will have control on these rarities collectively. While, yes, it's true that each cat is rare, the features that they have can be shared with other cats, the same cats can even have the same features and values but are still different because onyl of the KittyOwnership smart contract.

From compkkart.

For an example, if more people are breeding yellow kittens, there will be more yellow kittens on the blockchain - making them less scarce. If more people will breed kittens with red eyes, then the supply of red-eyed kittens will also increase. This is how they collectively control a features uniqueness, and how prices can be determined.

There are, however, cats that are more unique than the general populace because of some parameters, namely:

• Mewtations
• Founder cats
• Exclusive cats

From Ivan on Tech.

The Mewtated, Founder, and Exclusive cats are only some of the examples of different cats that exist within the game. Breeding cats to be more unique can result to profits when selling your kittens to others. Also, owning cats that become more scarce because of the collectively action of the market may also result to profits.

Another way of earning money is just by breeding more cats and selling them, the more you sell the more cryptocurrencies you earn - it may not be as big as rarer cats - but keep in my that breeding results to mewtated cats that can fetch higher prices. The principle of HODL may apply to CryptoKitties as well. As well as simple buying and selling of a cat. As long as the prices in the markets move, there's a chance that you'll earn.

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Thanks a lot for reading this new information about CryptoKitties that I have shared in Steemit. This article is made possible by the homework task given by @gbenga empowered by assignment of @steemitblog.

Till my next information article. Have an awesome day readers!

All images used are from compkkart, wikimedia (gif image), etc. Thank you so much for this task @gbenga, @steemitblog, @steemcurator01, @steemcurator02!