Cats Invade World's Largest Ethereum Hackathon

CryptoKitties Breeds Hundreds of Cats in 36 Hours to Promote Blockchain Product

VANCOUVER, Oct. 17, 2017 /CNW/ - Over the weekend, CryptoKitties, a product that aims to bring cats to the Ethereum blockchain, had a surprise alpha launch at the world's largest Ethereum hackathon in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. With the premise that programmable scarcity is perfect for collectibles, CryptoKitties are 256-bit genomes. Each CryptoKitty is breedable, and there are physical characteristics that can only be unlocked by siring with another CryptoKitty.

Each ETHWaterloo participant who signed up was gifted two "CryptoKitties," with 50 CryptoKitties given away at the start of the event. From there, users were able to trade and breed hundreds of collectible cats. By Monday, Hackers, cryptocurrency enthusiasts, and even casual users (who found many of the other Ethereum-based projects difficult to understand) had bred over 1,500 CryptoKitties.

"The future is exciting, and we believe that blockchain is the future—but blockchain is about as approachable as a bunch of ones and zeroes,"  states the CryptoKitties manifesto—titled "catifesto"—via a hidden link on the CryptoKitties landing page. "We want a future for everyone, not one exclusive to Bitcoin miners, VCs, ICOs, and other equally fun acronyms."

Rainbow coloured cat t-shirts and cat-balloons marked the CryptoKitties team at ETHWaterloo. The team also handed out modified Pokemon cards as business cards, with stickers that encouraged users to check out the CryptoKitties website; bathroom stalls at ETHWaterloo featured cat posters with similar links. The alpha launch culminated in a series of breeding challenges that stipulated specific characteristics for CryptoKitties offspring. In the spirit of the event, winners were given Ethereum as a reward.

The team behind CryptoKitties, Axiom Zen, also won the hackathon with Rufflet, an analytics tool that visualizes functions being 'called' within a smart contract, providing deep insights for the contract's community and future decentralized apps (dApps). They shared the top spot with seven other teams, each awarded $1,000 in tokens of their choice.

"We're not trying to build the future," states the final words of the CryptoKitties catifesto, "we're trying to have fun with it. The future is meow."

About Axiom Zen: Axiom Zen is a venture studio based in Vancouver, BC. Specializing in emerging technology, Axiom Zen was named first among Canada's Most Innovative Companies by Canadian Business. Their products are used by Adobe, Microsoft, and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, with numerous accolades from Apple and Google.

About CryptoKitties: CryptoKitties is one of many blockchain projects created within Axiom Zen's experimental Foundry. The product is currently in alpha.

SOURCE Axiom Zen