CryptoKitties, coming soon to a smartphone near you!

A few months ago, we were reporting about the phenomenon created around CryptoKitties, a blockchain-based game consisting in collecting cartoon cats and growing them, with a bit of Ethereum treats.

According to Fortune, the game is about to get even bigger, as it’s heading for mobile platforms. Obviously, this would also give ETH a significant boost.

China to go big on Kitties

We’re expecting a Chinese-language app, solely for the iOS platform, at least for the moment, in an attempt to bring Greater China and Singapore into the crypto-feline frenzy. The app will make its debut on February 16, which comes at same time as the Lunar New Year. As for the global rollout, it should happen a few weeks after the initial release in China, according to Benny Giang, CryptoKitties founder.

“We did some models and we some made spreadsheets and had everyone take a guess at how many users we’d see. We ended up hitting every one of those numbers within the first three days,” Giang declared.

Initially, the game was introduced as a cute way to promote Ethereum’s mainstream adoption, but it quickly managed to become very popular across several countries. Just a few days after the launch, users managed to clog the network, while at one point, more than 30% of Ethereum transactions were being made through the game. Like expected, this resulted in more than 30,000 pending transactions in the backlog.

A big amount of users, expected to flood the network

The network is expecting to deal with another traffic spike once CryptoKitties will be available on the Chinese market, even bigger this time. As a side note, many top mobile games tend to get millions of users per day.

“I don’t think the Ethereum network could handle that. I don’t think any other blockchain is ready for that either,” Benny Giang says.

Since the game was first introduced, more than half a million kitties have been sold, as the total number of players is now around 250,000, while the total transactions already surpassed $40 million. Some kitties were sold for over $100,000, while a few of them are worth almost $300,000.