Hello everyone, before I begin to define the Cryptokitties, one must first understand what NFTs are, and how do they relate with the crypto world.
What are NFTs?
NFT is a short form for Non Fungible Tokens, are one of the types of cryptographic tokens that can represent ownership of digitally sketched goods, such as pieces of art or collectibles, and in the crypto space, non Fungible isn't a common word I must say, now let's quickly look at the word "Fungible" in the economics world, it is referred to as the characteristics of goods or commodity in which each individual unit is interchangeable and indistinguishable from each other, take for instance the US dollar is a perfect example of something Fungible, if person A has a $10 bank note, it can be replaced with Person B $10 bank note, without it affecting either of both parties because it still has the same value either ways, and on the other hand, Person A Favourite basket ball card is an example of something non Fungible because each card is treated as a collectible and has individual properties, and a card with one player doesn't have the same value as with a card with another player, and another example of non Fungible is a piece of art work, and the reason is because its just one original copy.
The most common properties of NFTs
Firstly, it's uniqueness, because it's has various properties stored in their token's metadata, secondly, they're provably scarce, and also Indivisible, because most NFTs cannot be split into smaller denominations, so it's impossible to buy or even sell a fraction of an NFT.
NFT guarantees the owner of the asset, are easily transferable and also are fraud proof, although NFT can be implemented on any program that supports smart contracts programming, thanks to the high programming language of the Ethereum, and the most noticeable examples are ERC-721 and ERC-1155 standards.
Having explained what NFTs are, now let's talk about an NFT project "Cryptokitties".
What are Cryptokitties??
Cryptokitties are a bunch of collectable, tradeable & breedable cats on the Ethereum platform, it's a dApp, as well as a website, where you could just buy own and breed cat as well as trade them using the blockchain,and uses an ERC 721 token which makes it a non Fungible token, and each cat is unique to its owner as well as a unique graphic design, and the price of each cats fluctuates just like any other crypto currency on the blockchain network, pending on supply and demands.
Plane and ordinary cats can be traded for a few dollars, but rare and fancy cats can be traded for thousand of dollars.
At launch the Cryptokitties made about 50,000 cats and sold to the highest bidders, and these cats were called Gen zero cats, and once users own the cats they can breed any two cats to own another cat, which I'd say is fascinating, and each one also has its own visual appearance quite different from another, they also have individual genotypes which determines the characteristics of its offspring, and each cats can breed for quite a number of times but they have a cool down period which becomes longer and longer with each breeding, and due to this a cat becomes less valuable the more times it has been bred, and in total there are about 4 billion possible crypto designs that can be created, which in turns gives it more value.
You can have a crypto Kitty in a few ways, which are purchasing one, breeding two Kitties on the network by buying them first before breeding them both, and the network, you aren't allowed to breed cats siblings or a parent and an offspring, and thirdly you can have a crypto Kitty as a gift.
One need to first open a Cryptokitties account, then continue by purchasing some kitties, and they can be gotten by using Ethereum token ETH, each transactions are verified by the miners and some fees are been paid the miners as well for each transaction made, and users can decide from either a standard transfer which takes a few minutes or low cost transfer which takes around 30 minutes, and these transaction cost a fee.
The Cryptokitties are on different levels and with various adds on, which determines its price from each other, though it's has been in the blockchain space for a few years now, and is one of the most exciting invention game in the crypto space.
Another major factor that makes a crypto cat attractive, are it's attributes, and great attributes makes a good breeding mate, and breeding two fine cats brings about a unique offspring, which also becomes pricey, and yeild a reasonable interest for its owner.
Basically the Cryptokitties increased in popularity by 2017 and this project was created by a Canadian studio called DapperLabs, and these guys also have a hand in the creation of another NFT project, which is the NBA Top Shot.
Conclusion
The Cryptokitties is one invention that has surely taken the crypto world to another dimension as well as increased the value of Ethereum in a pot of ways, and this has shown that the world of blockchain is filled with so many surprises that will keep unfolding with time.
Thanks for reading.