The virtual cats are breedable and carry a unique number and 256 bit distinct genome with DNA and different attributes (cattributes) that can be passed to offspring. Several traits can be passed down from the parents to the offspring. These include pattern, mouth (shape), fur, eye shape, base color, accent color, highlight color, eye color, and optional wild and environment characteristics. Other features like cool down times are not passed down but are instead a function of the 'generation' of the offspring, which is one higher than the maximum generation between the two parents. In December 2017 a CryptoKitty sold for $100,000.
On March 20, 2018, it was announced that CryptoKitties would be spun off into its own company and raised $12 million from several top venture capital firms and angel investors. The investment round was led by New York based Union Square Ventures and San Francisco based Andreessen Horowitz.
In May 2018, CryptoKitties launched their first celebrity-branded CryptoKitty with Stephen Curry, an American professional basketball player. As part of the partnership, Curry was given three CryptoKitties with special imagery, the first of which he put up for auction.The company later suspended the auction, claiming that Stephen Curry wasn't as involved as they initially thought. The company was later sued for trade secret theft over the Stephen Curry collectibles.
In October 2018, CryptoKitties reached the milestone of 1 million cats being bred with a volume of 3.2 million transactions on its smart contracts. In November 2018, Dapper Labs, which was spun out of Axiom Zen as the developer of CryptoKitties, raised an additional $15 million in a venture round led by Venrock. The company doubled its valuation in this round.
In 2018, CryptoKitties was used by the German museum ZKM Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe to showcase blockchain technology.