In the early days of CryptoKitties, the creators of the first NFT project auctioned off generation zero, or “Gen-0” cats, which are the ancestors of every cat in the game.
There can only ever be 50,000 Gen-0 cats as specified in the Ethereum smart contract making Gen-0’s have more value than most cats because of their rarity.
Gen-0 Kitty production stopped in November 2018 with only 34,928 in existence and this figure can be checked by looking at the smart contract function gen0CreatedCount on etherscan.
🔧 Value & Utility
Gen-0 cats remain valuable for a variety of reasons but at its core, these CryptoKitties are NFTs with overpowered breeding properties and hard capped scarcity.
Breeding Utility
- Possess fastest cooldowns in CryptoKitties for virgin (mint) cats
- Genetics are precursors to unlocking the entire CryptoKitties trait tree
Speculative Value
- Guaranteed scarcity with a hard cap of
50,000enforced by the smart contract - Immediate exposure to the NFT ecosystem with correlation to market activity
Over time the CryptoKitties community has improved the utility of Gen-0 cats.
To improve liquidity, collectors wrap Gen-0s into ERC-20 tokens. Every ERC-20 is backed 1:1 by a Gen-0 and to-date over 2,000 cats have been wrapped.
Wrapped Gen-0 cats benefit from immediate liquidity as they can be exchanged on Uniswap.
Gen-0 collectibility spectrum contains many verticals of collecting that fit a wide range of budgets.
Collectors look for rare colors, eye shapes, fur types, and even the first Gen-0 cats to start a bloodline when assessing collectibility.
The most accessible Gen-0 traits can range from $500 - $1,000 and the most expensive being millions.
In the early days, collectibility derived from breeding utility but with the introduction of new features, collectibility widened.
💎 Understanding Gen-0 Scarcity
There are many verticals of Gen-0 collecting which we will break down into types before diving into properties of each.
| Name | Description | Supply Type |
|---|---|---|
Virgin | Gen-0 cats that have not been used in breeding and remain in mint condition. | Deflationary |
Founders | Rare and iconic, record-setting CryptoKitties | Capped |
Rare genes | Scarce Gen-0s with a rare genes | Capped |
Gems | Gen-0 cats that with genetics that established a new bloodline denoted by Diamond, Gilded, Amethyst and Lapis. | Capped |
Fancies | Born as Fancy cats with special artwork. | Capped |
Exclusive | Minted by CryptoKitties as Exclusive cats with special artwork. Supply is uncapped as CryptoKitties still holds a small number of Gen-0s which can be used. | Uncapped |
Virgin - Less than 16,000 exist
These cats have never been bred and remain in mint condition. Their supply is decreasing because mint Gen-0 cats are actively (or accidentally) being bred.
Wrapped Virgin Gen-0 tokens ($WVG0) exist and are much more expensive than $WG0.
Rare traits and special cats
These cats possess mewtation gems or genes that are rare and highly collectible.
| Name | Type | Description | Scarcity | Market | Sales |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Diamond | Gem | First cat with trait | 29 | ||
Gilded | Gem | Next 9 cats with trait | 238 | ||
Meowgarine | Gene | Base color | 332 | ||
Cymric | Gene | Base color | 380 | ||
Gold | Gene | Eye color | 668 | ||
Googly | Gene | Eye shape | 743 | ||
Mittens | Gene | Pattern | 778 | ||
Orangesoda | Gene | Base color | 854 | ||
Ragamuffin | Gene | Fur | 947 | ||
Himalayan | Gene | Fur | 952 | ||
Aquamarine | Gene | Base color | 1137 | ||
Salmon | Gene | Base color | 1139 | ||
Morningglory | Gene | Accent color | 1857 | ||
Amethyst | Gem | Next 90 cats with trait | 3558 | ||
Lapis | Gem | Remaining 400 cats with trait | 9378 | ||
😼 Founder cats *work-in-progress
Founders make up the first 100 cats in the game and possess overpowered genes found in no other CryptoKitties.
The market for these Gen-0 cats fluctuates with some cats selling for over $100,000.
Founder quality can be determined by its genetics and the chart to the right showcases the difference between Founders.
These highly coveted cats can be purchased on the CryptoKitties marketplace and regularly see offers for enormous sums of money.
Exclusive Founder traits include
- Chestnut
- Jaguar
- Simple
Fancy Gen-0 cats
In some cases, Gen-0 cats have born as Fancies when they were minted from CryptoKitties either by mistake or by design. The two Gen-0 Fancies are Shipcat, which is also the first Fancy cat in the game, and Dregg0.
Production of Gen-0s has ceased and eliminated the potential for new Gen-0 Fancies to be created.
Shipcat
Shipcat is the first Fancy cat to ever be created in CryptoKitties. While most of these Shipcat Fancies are bred as non-Gen 0, few were minted as Gen-0 by CryptoKitties making them incredibly scarce.
Some collectors argue that these are the rarest CryptoKitties in the game exceeding the value of even Founders.
- Circulating count: 5
Dreggo
Dreggo is a Fancy cat that was both breedable (non-gen 0) and minted by the CryptoKitties team as Gen-0s. These Fancies were part of the celebration to end the production of Gen-0s.
They are significantly more accessible and affordable than their Gen-0 Shipcat counterparts.
💸 Buy your first Gen-0
CryptoKitties Marketplace
The CryptoKitties marketplace is where most trading volume occurs and is the recommended method of buying Gen-0 cats with rare traits.
Pros
- Search for rare traits using filters
- Create below market value offers
Uniswap
Speculators can get immediate exposure to Gen-0s by buying $WG0 on the Uniswap exchange. Each ERC-20 token is backed 1:1 by a Gen-0 cat in the Wrapped Gen-0 smart contract.
Pros
- Immediate liquidity for buying and selling Gen-0 cats.
- Buy multiple Gen-0s in a single transaction