Chances are if you ask someone who knows what an NFT is they'll
probably show you a picture of a cat well a Cryptokitty to be precise.
Which is sort of the same thing in that it's cute it has a bunch of characteristics
that come from its parents and its own particular personality or attributes
this is Kitty #539834 who is a Gen 1 fast cool down breed who collects socks,
loves whiskeys, and once had a brief relationship with Mr. Norris.
Not only are they unique they're blockchain certified as one of a kind and their creation
represents possibly the most significant moment in the nascent history of NFTs.
I'm Forkast's Joel Flynn and this is Moments in NFT History
As the world continues to catch on to the limitless potential of non-fundable tokens and
of blockchain, let's take you back quickly and look at how we got here.
So let's go way back in time to 2017, long before covert and when the average person was probably
just getting to grips with what bitcoin was. Over in Ontario, Canada in the city of
Waterloo -- an Ethereum event snappily called ETH Waterloo was hosting a hackathon
featuring some of the world's best and brightest Ethereum coders -- that
included several individuals from Axiom Zen, seen here in the tie-dye t-shirt.
This was the moment the first CryptoKitties were born and the beginning of NFTs going mainstream.
Participants at ETH Waterloo 2017 were given two kitties each and began littering the world
with the adorable NFTs and perhaps more importantly talking about it as well.
Well, the Axiom Zen team said at that time in their “catifesto”:
“Blockchain is about as approachable as a bunch of ones and zeroes… We want a future for everyone,
not one exclusive to Bitcoin miners, VCs, ICOs, and other equally fun acronyms.”
Fair play, they certainly achieved that.
CrypoKitties exploded in popularity - its developers called it a
“cultural sensation” within a month of its launch.
That prompted Axiom Zen to spin off a new studio called Dapper Labs to take care of the IP.
Do pay attention to that name, it will be important.
In spring 2018, a CryptoKitty sold for US$140,000, and Steph-freaking-Curry had got one.
By the time October rolled around, just 288 days after launch and tens of millions
of dollars worth of sales later, the one-millionth CryptoKitty was born.
Now going viral was great for Kitty-owners and of course for Dapper Labs and Axiom Zen.
It turns out though it wasn’t quite so good for Ethereum,
which was struggling under the weight of demand for the NFTs.
Just a month after their creation, Axiom Zen claimed that CryptoKitties were accounting
for 20-25 percent of the ENTIRE Ethereum blockchain. Now I know you guys can do maths,
but it’s worth repeating; One in four Ethereum transactions was a CryptoKitty.
Obviously this wasn’t sustainable, and people were starting to worry about the blockchain itself
The problem with the Kitties was scaling.
So an impromptu taskforce of Ethereum developers from projects like MetaMask, Infura, and Grid+
all came together to help try and figure out a solution.
Co-founder Bryce Bladon said afterwards:
There was “this sense of achievement — and horror — that we might have broken one of the
world’s most remarkable examples of blockchain. As much as we want to push the technology forward,
we didn’t want to shove others out of the way to do it.”
After that? Well according to Alex Miller from Grid+, the initial wave died down
and - well - people are making videos about CryptKitties’ historical significance…
Ultimately these cute guys probably won’t be remembered for their characteristics, but rather
the lessons learnt about Ethereum, scaling and about the appeal and potential market for NFTs.
And that only looks likely to grow even further.