Late in June, our CEO Roham joined Ubisoft founder Yves Guillemot to jury the Blockchain Heroes Hackathon in Montreuil, France. The hackathon brings teams together in a two-day challenge to integrate blockchain and gaming.

As a world leader in interactive entertainment, Ubisoft’s decision to host this hackathon is a sign of the power and potential of blockchain for the gaming industry. The event was a purrfect bullseye in the venn diagram of gaming and art that excites us here in the Cat Cave, and as soon as they asked we knew we needed to be involved.

We’ve always believed that gaming is a vital tool to making blockchain accessible to everyday audiences. It’s a pillar of the philosophy behind CryptoKitties — regular people getting excited about technology in a way that isn’t overwhelming or off-putting. Blockchain can be dense and hard to wrap your head around, which is why we believe gaming is the first step on the path to mass adoption.

The winning experience at Blockchain Heroes, “Piggy Breaker”, won Exclusive RabbidsKitties made just for the event. The prize Kitty is a crossover with Rabbids, Ubisoft’s mischievous bunnies who have headlined games alongside Nintendo’s Mario, one of gaming’s most beloved icons.

The RabbidsKitties are a great example of digital scarcity in action. The Kitties are completely unique and can’t be duplicated. They’re true digital ownership, immortalized forever on the blockchain. They’re also adorably weird.

“I was really impressed with how people leaned into what the benefits of blockchain are to the actual user. When we see blockchain projects typically, it’s usually added on as an afterthought, but I was quite impressed with how folks had really internalized what makes distributed technology special,” Roham said.

Guillemot agreed that the participating teams and projects really found their stride. “I found that there was enormous energy and creativity. What surprised me was that they were capable, in only two days, of creating prototypes that worked and that perfectly used all of the functions that blockchain offers.”

We want to build a thriving developer ecosystem, and supporting hackathons like this is part of that strategy. The community-driven projects developed at events like Blockchain Heroes are unique to decentralized apps, whose open nature enables teams to build on top of established concepts. It’s the same thing that makes the KittyVerse possible, and it’s also why we created the Nifty License. The Nifty License gives developers permission to use CryptoKitties branded material, and the Nifty Kitty Program helps them develop what they build.