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CryptoKitties: breedable cats on the blockchain – ETHWaterloo winner

168 points by rohamg 9y ago

retox 9y ago
Finally, the killer app for blockchain tech. I knew it would be porn or cats.
fiatjaf 9y ago
Shut up and take my money!
azinman2 9y ago
We’re all doomed.
- Grangar 9y ago
  Why?
knocte 9y ago
facepalm
Uptrenda 9y ago
Please do Pokemon next. It's about time I get some respect for my shiny Mudkip.
- retox 9y ago
  Final Fantasy 7 on the PlayStation had a Chocobo breeding mini-game. Chocobo were a type of flightless bird and by breeding there was a chance to get birds with different characteristics, denoted by different colored feathers, which granted you access to different parts of the game.
  - Fifer82 9y ago
    You know, when I think back to FFVII (I never played any others after this). Trying to breed the correct chocobo is probably the worst part of the game. For the gold, did you not need a special potion or something (and many guesses) bred with different colours of chocobo? It makes stressed just thinking of it.
- hw 9y ago
  Wouldn't be too surprised if something like that is in the works at Nintendo or The Pokemon Co.
  - AgentME 9y ago
    If a fan made this and hosted the web frontend to the contract on ipfs (initially hosted just by nodes behind Tor, and then pinned/rehosted by many users), then Nintendo would have a very hard time taking it down, even if the original creator was known to them.
    - kbody 9y ago
      Indeed, it would be nice to actually test the censorship resistance of these platforms. Although it will have to get quite big for Nintendo etc. to care. Then you have the side-channel attacks or rather entry attacks, where it would be easier to take down any mobile apps that use this as a backend. We shall see.
- AlphaWeaver 9y ago
  A friend of mine once worked on a prototype for something like that.
- euparkeria 9y ago
  It would solve the hacks and return the value of shiny and perfect IVs pokémon, someone must build that solution.
2_listerine_pls 9y ago
tldr;
- sctb 9y ago
  Please don't. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
luckyt 9y ago
Wow, you built all this from scratch in a 36-hour hackathon? How much experience did you have with Ethereum?
halfus 9y ago
I guess attending a real hackathon was a little too hard, so you went for the meme. Congrats. I hope the photo-op with Vitalik or whatever was worth it, because that's 36 hours you're never going to get back. Solidity and (g)eth are a joke, and so is your testnet. Also, it would be nice if people stopped plastering 'crypto' as a prefix to their shitty tech. Cryptography is a highly respectable academic field, and deserves far better than to be associated with these "hackathons". Just call it a web app hosted on AWS as a front end to a Go binary next time, thanks.
- dang 9y ago
  This sort of nasty dismissal breaks the site guidelines. We ban accounts that do that, so would you please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and not comment like this here again?
vanderZwan 9y ago
Relevant SMBC: http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2932 http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2932
- mirimir 9y ago
  So I was going to point to http://www.ratemykitten.com/ http://www.ratemykitten.com/ ... but it's gone :( And so is http://rotten.com/ http://rotten.com/ :( Finally, after almost a decade in zombie mode. That's impressive. I wonder where it was running.
  - retox 9y ago
    Damn, I was browsing rotten only a few weeks ago. Related and more (though only slightly) on-topic was bonsai kitten. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonsai_Kitten https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonsai_Kitten
em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
In all seriousness, this seems useful as an educational tutorial on how smart contracts work.
- painted 9y ago
  I agree, and I think the author should write a blog-post/tutorial about it, it might be useful for a lot of people that are looking into blockchain/ethereum/solidity, me being one of them.
bgiang 9y ago
Hi all, trying to fulfill requests for the kitties! We got over 100 while we were on the plane back from Waterloo.
japano1se 9y ago
And cryptocurrency/blockchain enthusiasts tell me it's not a hype train and/or bubble!
- czechdeveloper 9y ago
  Because people have fun with it? I don't think this is valid argument. That does not mean it is not a bubble, but I can't take project like this as indication of it.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
dvt 9y ago
This is, of course, pretty cool. But I don't really share much enthusiasm for the blockchain. It reminds me of Bit Torrent in the early 2000s. Sure, it had a decent impact on the Internet, but not really as revolutionary as everyone was hyping it to be. Smart contracts are cool, but it's nothing you couldn't achieve with any other decentralized protocol. The only interesting part of cryptocurrencies (imo) is the ledger, and from what I've seen, the BTC ledger is becoming a bit unwieldly. ETH will probably follow suit.
- ric2b 9y ago
  > It reminds me of Bit Torrent in the early 2000s. Sure, it had a decent impact on the Internet, but not really as revolutionary as everyone was hyping it to be. It forced two gigantic industries (music and movie) to re-invent themselves, how can you say it only had a decent impact?
  - mseebach 9y ago
    The hype around BitTorrent was a lot more hypey than that, and the revolution you're describing was already well underway by then by means of Napster and LimeWire and what not. I think the "let-down" is akin to what it would feel like if the end-result of the blockchain in a decade would amount to little more than cheap, low-friction international payments (and those not even powered by a blockchain, but simply by the banks getting their shit together). That's great and all, but the blockchain hype is way up there with enabling anarchist utopia.
  - austinheap 9y ago
    > It forced two gigantic industries (music and movie) to re-invent themselves, how can you say it only had a decent impact? Seriously! It completely up-ended entertainment and forced new business models on multi-billion dollar entrenched players. Hundred of billions of dollars later it's no longer a question if it had a revolutionary impact IMHO.
- Bromskloss 9y ago
  > Smart contracts are cool, but it's nothing you couldn't achieve with any other decentralized protocol. What are those other ways?
vander_elst 9y ago
figures 3 and 4 are swapped?
Bromskloss 9y ago
> Challenge 1: Solid grey fur pattern + no tail + teeth (1st place - Cat #105, 2nd place - Cat #135, 3rd place - Cat #177) What does this mean? Has cat #105 already won? I thought it wouldn't start until late November.
- javra 9y ago
  Stray cats.
- dete 9y ago
  We ran an alpha challenge during ETHWaterloo this weekend, on one of the Ethereum testnets. The official, mainnet release is still scheduled for November.
eric-hu 9y ago
Will I have to buy ether to participate in this?
- dete 9y ago
  The first release will be Ether only, but we hope to enable non-crypto payments soon after. (Behind the scenes everything happens in Ether, on the Ethereum blockchain.)
vectorEQ 9y ago
mining cats, thats finally some useful blockchain tech, has to be first for everything

168 points by rohamg 9y ago

retox 9y ago

Finally, the killer app for blockchain tech. I knew it would be porn or cats.

fiatjaf 9y ago

Shut up and take my money!

azinman2 9y ago

We’re all doomed.

Grangar 9y ago
Why?

knocte 9y ago

facepalm

Uptrenda 9y ago

Please do Pokemon next. It's about time I get some respect for my shiny Mudkip.

retox 9y ago
Final Fantasy 7 on the PlayStation had a Chocobo breeding mini-game. Chocobo were a type of flightless bird and by breeding there was a chance to get birds with different characteristics, denoted by different colored feathers, which granted you access to different parts of the game.
- Fifer82 9y ago
  You know, when I think back to FFVII (I never played any others after this). Trying to breed the correct chocobo is probably the worst part of the game. For the gold, did you not need a special potion or something (and many guesses) bred with different colours of chocobo? It makes stressed just thinking of it.
hw 9y ago
Wouldn't be too surprised if something like that is in the works at Nintendo or The Pokemon Co.
- AgentME 9y ago
  If a fan made this and hosted the web frontend to the contract on ipfs (initially hosted just by nodes behind Tor, and then pinned/rehosted by many users), then Nintendo would have a very hard time taking it down, even if the original creator was known to them.
  - kbody 9y ago
    Indeed, it would be nice to actually test the censorship resistance of these platforms. Although it will have to get quite big for Nintendo etc. to care. Then you have the side-channel attacks or rather entry attacks, where it would be easier to take down any mobile apps that use this as a backend. We shall see.
AlphaWeaver 9y ago
A friend of mine once worked on a prototype for something like that.
euparkeria 9y ago
It would solve the hacks and return the value of shiny and perfect IVs pokémon, someone must build that solution.

2_listerine_pls 9y ago

tldr;

sctb 9y ago
Please don't. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

luckyt 9y ago

Wow, you built all this from scratch in a 36-hour hackathon? How much experience did you have with Ethereum?

halfus 9y ago

I guess attending a real hackathon was a little too hard, so you went for the meme. Congrats. I hope the photo-op with Vitalik or whatever was worth it, because that's 36 hours you're never going to get back. Solidity and (g)eth are a joke, and so is your testnet. Also, it would be nice if people stopped plastering 'crypto' as a prefix to their shitty tech. Cryptography is a highly respectable academic field, and deserves far better than to be associated with these "hackathons". Just call it a web app hosted on AWS as a front end to a Go binary next time, thanks.

dang 9y ago
This sort of nasty dismissal breaks the site guidelines. We ban accounts that do that, so would you please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and not comment like this here again?

vanderZwan 9y ago

Relevant SMBC: http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2932 http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2932

mirimir 9y ago
So I was going to point to http://www.ratemykitten.com/ http://www.ratemykitten.com/ ... but it's gone :( And so is http://rotten.com/ http://rotten.com/ :( Finally, after almost a decade in zombie mode. That's impressive. I wonder where it was running.
- retox 9y ago
  Damn, I was browsing rotten only a few weeks ago. Related and more (though only slightly) on-topic was bonsai kitten. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonsai_Kitten https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonsai_Kitten

em3rgent0rdr 9y ago

In all seriousness, this seems useful as an educational tutorial on how smart contracts work.

painted 9y ago
I agree, and I think the author should write a blog-post/tutorial about it, it might be useful for a lot of people that are looking into blockchain/ethereum/solidity, me being one of them.

bgiang 9y ago

Hi all, trying to fulfill requests for the kitties! We got over 100 while we were on the plane back from Waterloo.

japano1se 9y ago

And cryptocurrency/blockchain enthusiasts tell me it's not a hype train and/or bubble!

czechdeveloper 9y ago
Because people have fun with it? I don't think this is valid argument. That does not mean it is not a bubble, but I can't take project like this as indication of it.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

dvt 9y ago

This is, of course, pretty cool. But I don't really share much enthusiasm for the blockchain. It reminds me of Bit Torrent in the early 2000s. Sure, it had a decent impact on the Internet, but not really as revolutionary as everyone was hyping it to be. Smart contracts are cool, but it's nothing you couldn't achieve with any other decentralized protocol. The only interesting part of cryptocurrencies (imo) is the ledger, and from what I've seen, the BTC ledger is becoming a bit unwieldly. ETH will probably follow suit.

ric2b 9y ago
> It reminds me of Bit Torrent in the early 2000s. Sure, it had a decent impact on the Internet, but not really as revolutionary as everyone was hyping it to be. It forced two gigantic industries (music and movie) to re-invent themselves, how can you say it only had a decent impact?
- mseebach 9y ago
  The hype around BitTorrent was a lot more hypey than that, and the revolution you're describing was already well underway by then by means of Napster and LimeWire and what not. I think the "let-down" is akin to what it would feel like if the end-result of the blockchain in a decade would amount to little more than cheap, low-friction international payments (and those not even powered by a blockchain, but simply by the banks getting their shit together). That's great and all, but the blockchain hype is way up there with enabling anarchist utopia.
- austinheap 9y ago
  > It forced two gigantic industries (music and movie) to re-invent themselves, how can you say it only had a decent impact? Seriously! It completely up-ended entertainment and forced new business models on multi-billion dollar entrenched players. Hundred of billions of dollars later it's no longer a question if it had a revolutionary impact IMHO.
Bromskloss 9y ago
> Smart contracts are cool, but it's nothing you couldn't achieve with any other decentralized protocol. What are those other ways?

vander_elst 9y ago

figures 3 and 4 are swapped?

Bromskloss 9y ago

> Challenge 1: Solid grey fur pattern + no tail + teeth (1st place - Cat #105, 2nd place - Cat #135, 3rd place - Cat #177) What does this mean? Has cat #105 already won? I thought it wouldn't start until late November.

javra 9y ago
Stray cats.
dete 9y ago
We ran an alpha challenge during ETHWaterloo this weekend, on one of the Ethereum testnets. The official, mainnet release is still scheduled for November.

eric-hu 9y ago

Will I have to buy ether to participate in this?

dete 9y ago
The first release will be Ether only, but we hope to enable non-crypto payments soon after. (Behind the scenes everything happens in Ether, on the Ethereum blockchain.)

vectorEQ 9y ago

mining cats, thats finally some useful blockchain tech, has to be first for everything