Curry Shooting Threes With CryptoKitties
Golden State Warriors on The Blockchain
How many CurryKitties will it take to win the NBA Championship?
CryptoKitties / Via cryptokitties.co
It’s true. Steph Curry is now a CryptoKitty. Let the Singularity begin!
Early this morning the news went out, “The two-time MVP is putting the first of three Exclusive CryptoKitties up for auction via a personal crypto wallet on Monday, May 7th as one of the world’s first sports collectibles on the blockchain!”
Exciting news for anyone holding Ethereum. The launch of CryptoKitties over the holidays was the cause for a record surge in the cryptocurrency and was responsible for over a quarter of the network’s traffic at its peak.
Licensed digital celebrity sports memorabilia makes a good use case for blockchain technology which offers a level authentication that mitigates the fraud that plagues the physical collectibles market. The company explained in its Medium post:
“When we launched CryptoKitties, we wanted to showcase an application for blockchain technology beyond cryptocurrency. To accomplish this, we pioneered the concept of cryptocollectibles. Sports collectibles, like baseball cards, have gone through booms and busts, with overproduction and forgeries always catalyzing the busts. Blockchain technology solves issues like these with digital scarcity and provable authentication.”
“Steph is the perfect partner to help us get to our mission of bringing blockchain to a billion consumers.”
And hopefully good luck for The Warriors as they return to Oracle tomorrow for Game 5.
*Articles originally posted May 7, 2018 in BuzzFeed Community (above) and on Geekazine (below), then later updated on May 23, 2018 on Blockchain Gamer when campaign was suspended — by me!
NBA Star Steph Cury Lands on the Blockchain with CryptoKitties
It’s the NBA playoffs and Golden State Warrior’s Steph Curry isn’t disappointing fans on the court or off.
Live right now, the two time MVP is auctioning off the first of 3 exclusive CurryKitties at https://www.cryptokitties.co/kitty/230 and at 5pm PDT today there will be a Twitch livestream with giveaways of 10 rare CryptoKitties. More details here: cryptokitties.co/stephen-curry.
In their Medium post, the company explained how joining paws with the basketball legend is furthering their mission to help the public understand the value of blockchain technology and why owning digital memorabilia on the blockchain makes sense:
“When we launched CryptoKitties, we wanted to showcase an application for blockchain technology beyond cryptocurrency. To accomplish this, we pioneered the concept of cryptocollectibles. Sports collectibles, like baseball cards, have gone through booms and busts, with overproduction and forgeries always catalyzing the busts. Blockchain technology solves issues like these with digital scarcity and provable authentication.”
“Steph is the perfect partner to help us get to our mission of bringing blockchain to a billion consumers.”
As a follow up, I asked CryptoKitties co-founder Benny Giang for thoughts on future celebrity tie-ins and how large a market licensed digital collectibles are expected to be for 2018 and beyond. He responded:
“The North Star is to bring the first billion consumers to the blockchain. It’s no different from what we’ve done so far. Whether it’s games, influencer collaborations, or art. We will continue down this path in pursuant of our larger goal. Digital trading cards, crypto collectibles, and blockchain games all are in service of creating value for digital assets. Since GDC, I’ve mentioned that what we are doing is leveraging distributed ledger technology to keep track of ownership. Working with influencers will allow us to shape this dialogue in a meaningful way. This technology is as vital as the internet, so laying claim to the use cases of the internet for gaming, art, or currencies is kind of selling it short. It will be big!”
Others agree. “Cryptocollecting is going to be a big market, have a look at blockchain’s impact on the art world,” said Brian Wallace, founder NowSourcing.
“I think the bigger opportunity is for authentication of memorabilia. I.e. certificates of authentication tracked and stored on the blockchain.” said Kevin Raheja, investor and serial entrepreneur.
As Blockchain Week approaches, cryptocollectibles are heating up to be a hot topic for discussion, especially as the Golden State Warriors continue to crush it in the finals. Go DUBS!!!
Meet CryptoKitties co-founder Benny Giang at Pocket Gamer’s Blockchain Gamer Connects in SF, May 14–15, and I’ll be there with the Pocket Gamer editorial team. Use code: Martine for 30% off and tweet me your thoughts at @contentnow. More details at http://www.pgconnects.com/sanfrancisco/blockchain-gamer-connects.
CryptoKitties is the Ethereum network’s largest blockchain game, responsible for over a quarter of the network’s traffic during its peak. Since launching in late 2017, the game has acquired hundreds of thousands of players and conducted millions in transactions. On March 20th, 2018, CryptoKitties announced $12M in funding led by Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures, two of the world’s top venture capital firms.
