People Have Spent Over $1M Buying Virtual Cats on the Ethereum Blockchain (techcrunch.com)

Launched a few days ago, CryptoKitties is essentially like an digital version of Pokemon cards but based on the Ethereum blockchain. And like most viral sensations that catch on in the tech world, it's blowing up fast. From a report, shared by an anonymous reader: Built by Vancouver and San Francisco-based design studio AxiomZen, the game is the latest fad in the world of cryptocurrency and probably soon tech in general. People are spending a crazy amount of real money on the game. So far about $1.3M has been transacted, with multiple kittens selling for ~50 ETH (around $23,000) and the "genesis" kitten being sold for a record ~246 ETH (around $113,000). This third party site tracks the largest purchases made to date on the game. And like any good viral sensation prices are rising and fluctuating fast. Right now it will cost you about .03 ETH, or $12 to buy the least expensive kitten in the game. So now we have people using Ether, an asset with arguably little tangible utility -- to purchase an asset with unarguably zero tangible utility. Welcome to the internet in 2017.

Comments

As the sayings go...

[CodeHog]

"A fool and their money" "One born every minute"

I can't wait for the first virtual petnapping!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Wire 10 bitcoin to this Russian account or we delete Fluffy forever!"

Re:digital pokemon?

[Comboman]

Perhaps we could call them Digi-mon?

Sounds like money laundering

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody in their right mind spends $23,000 on a picture of a cat. The average joe who sells cat jpegs might get the price up to $20 if they're really lucky. The sellers and developers are being paid for something else.

The Idle Rich

[PopeRatzo]

Wealthy people are buying digital blockchain cat pictures. A sitting US senator, Chuck Grassley (R-Bumfuck, Iowa) said this yesterday on television:

"“I think not having the estate tax recognizes the people that are investing — as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies,”

Get that? He thinks people who aren't millionaires just spend all their money on booze or women or movies.

I'm pretty sure we have ample evidence to start setting up the guillotines. We don't have to kill all the rich people and the government officials who service them, I'm thinking the rest might get the message.

Not a bubble

[Moof123]

Clearly crypto coins, and now crypto cats are the wave of the future and will displace real money/cats in the future. Animal control is run by the government and can be used to STEAL your hard earned real cat. A crypto cat is clearly better in every way*.

*The ability to pet your crypto cat will come some day in the future.

Common marketing strategy

[Solandri]

Disassociate the purchase transaction from real money by using a fake currency, and people will spend it more freely. Even if there's a 1:1 association between the fake currency and real money.

• Casinos do it by using chips.
• Amusement parks do it by using Disney Dollars or something similar.
• Online games do it by using virtual in-game currency like gold or PLEX.
• Tourist areas take advantage of it by charging prices in their native currency, and tourists unfamiliar with the exchange rate can easily overpay for stuff.
• Credit card companies do it by removing physical cash from the transaction. You just swipe a card to buy something, never feeling the pain of the cash leaving your wallet.