No one said making blockchain games would be easy. But when Crypto Kitties went viral in December, briefly crippling the Ethereum blockchain in the process, it was believed to have cracked it. The $12 million in seed funding that the project secured, three months later, was seen as validation of this. But as the subsequent decline of Crypto Kitties shows, blockchain games have still got a long way to go.

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Crypto Kitties Is Catatonic

Rule 35 of the internet, it has been proposed, is "If it exists there is blockchain of it". It was inevitable that blockchain games would arrive, and when they did, it seemed natural that the killer dapp should be dedicated to cats, the internet's favorite animal. Crypto Kitties was the viral game that put the fun into blockchain, and gifted journalists with cataclysmic headlines about the Ethereum network being filled with felines.

Like the ERC20 tokens that are tradable on the Ethereum blockchain, Crypto Kitties are not immune to market forces; it's now down a staggering 98.5% from its all-time high. That figure is based on the number of daily active users rather than price, for Crypto Kitties have no fixed value. They can change hands for eye-watering amounts of ether – or can fail to attract a single buyer, depending on market mania.

NFTs Are Still In Their Infancy

Right now, the market seems to have had its fill of Crypto Kitties, and while its stock may rise again, it's hard to see the $12 million valuation in a game with under 200 active users. Diar first brought the decline of non-fungible token (NFT) games to light before Nic Carter followed up on the topic. In addition to the $12 million Crypto Kitties raised in March, Diar mentions the $6m paid for NFT marketplace Rare Bits. It notes: