Why Blockchain Technology Unlocked True Digital Ownership.

In December 2017, a virtual cat sold for $100,000 worth of cryptocurrency. In today’s article, we dig out how blockchain technology made possible true ownership of a digital asset.

On December 2, 2017, Genesis, the first ever CryptoKitty to be created on the Ethereum blockchain was sold for some 247 Ether, around $115,000 at that time valuation.

For those who are not familiar with such concepts, here is a quick recap: A blockchain at is core is an permissionless, censorship-resistant and immutable ledger that is distributed throughout a network and which governance is decentralized. It allows peers to make trustless transactions without any central authority, resulting in lower fees and increased speed. Bitcoin is the first application of blockchain technology. By adding transactions into blocks, creating a chain validated by peers which represents the history of the network, it allows the first ever Peer-To-Peer electronic cash to be traded safely on a global scale, without the need of a third-party. Ethereum is a decentralized platform which allows to run Decentralized Application (aka DApp) in the form of Smart-Contracts, an immutable piece of code uploaded to the blockchain containing programmed functions actionable by users through transactions or another smart-contract. This makes it possible to record events once they have occurred in an censorship-resistant registry, as the actions can not be undone.

This transaction illustrates perfectly the hype surrounding the first Crypto-Game running on the Ethereum blockchain by the time of its release, where players can collect and breed digital cats.

Released in October by the studio Axiom Zen, the winners of the hackathon ETHWaterloo certainly didn’t expect their project to become viral and grow so big that it threatens to bring down the whole blockchain.

Myself, I was just trying to breed a funny looking cat! Right when that mania started happening, we began getting reports of major congestion, problems, nothing working. — Dan Finlay, MetaMask

Despite its apparently gigantic success, at this particular moment, the opinions concerning this game are divided between huge non-sense and pure genius.

Among all of this apparent mess, there is one thing that shone bright like a diamond.

Not content of being the first crypto-game on Ethereum, CryptoKitties is a pioneer in the application of the ERC-721 Token Standard, a set of rules which permits a player to own a unique digital asset.

So far, with the Internet-of-Information, it was impossible for buyers to really own their digital goods.

Think about it:

Whenever you buy music on iTunes, can you sell it elsewhere after you’ve played it so many times that you just can’t listen to a single note anymore? Does it belong to you?

Whenever you download for a few bucks an eBook from an influencer’s website, can’t you just then upload it on a Dropbox-like service and share it to your friend without losing access to it?

Does it belong to you?

Does it belong to you? Whenever you buy an item or a skin from Steam Store for your online game, what is the intrinsic value of the item you just bought if the game-dev can just multiply with a single-command to an almost-infinite number the item supply? Can you sell it to your friends?

Does it belong to you?

“When I send you some information I’m not actually sending you the information, I’m sending you a copy, whether that’s a spreadsheet or a PowerPoint file or a Word document or an email.” — Don Tapscott, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman at Blockchain Research Institute

The Internet-of-Value (in opposition with the Internet-of-Information) is on its way with the development of blockchain technology, and it may finally give users the real ownership of their digital goods.

It will be possible for us to store, move, transact value without the need for a powerful intermediary.

Well, those are beautiful words, isn’t it?

Although I do believe in what I’m writing, I’d like to go a bit deeper and explore for you, and with your permission, what makes blockchain technology so special when it concerns proving digital ownership and trustfully transacts.

Are you ready? Alright, then let’s begin! 🚀