The night that Papa saved the COO
That would make a really awesome title for a movie. And it would be “inspired by real events”, because it’s what happened the evening of March 27th!
The COO (short for Chief Operations Officer, a joke that riffs on the function of the account) is the name we’ve given to the account that the CryptoKitties team uses to manage the cats that are still owned by the team. It’s the account that auctions off Exclusive kitties. It’s also the account that puts the Kitty Clock cats up for auction — and to do that, it needs to pay a transaction fee for the creation of every cat.
So if it runs out of money…
No more Kitty Clock Gen 0s. And that, as you can imagine, is a real poop.
On the aforementioned night (you can probably guess where this is going), the COO ran out of money (you guessed it, didn’t you?). The CryptoKitties development team was fast asleep — which means no one would have been able to act on it until morning. That would have left us with a serious Gen 0 shortage, not to mention a backlog of cats that would need releasing.
This is for you, Papa
Instead of writing a post about how our architecture ground to a halt, though, we’re writing a post about a hero saving the day, all because of Papa. This kind-hearted and selfless user noticed the problem, and sent the COO enough ether to keep the system running all night.
It’s a beautiful example of the power of decentralization in blockchain, as well as an example of the strength and support of our amazing users. Our system crashed, but the open nature of the blockchain allowed a member of the community to step in and provide a vital function until we were back up.
We wanted to say thank you to this hero for his generous act, so the team is sending him two gorgeous Kitties as a sign of our unending gratitude. We also refunded him the ETH he spent on us, plus gas fees.
We often say that we couldn’t do this without the support of all of you, and that’s true, but it was especially true the night that Papa saved the COO.
Thank you, Papa.
