CryptoKitties Quietly Suspends ‘CurryKitties’ Promotion

The company behind popular Ethereum-based game CryptoKitties has quietly suspended its “CurryKitties” promotion, which allowed users to purchase limited edition digital cats modeled after the likeness of NBA superstar Stephen Curry.

It’s unclear when precisely the promotion was taken down, but its web page has replaced with a message explaining that the campaign has been suspended indefinitely since — contrary to CryptoKitties’ original understanding — the Golden State Warriors point guard was not an active participant in the promotion.

“The CurryKitties are taking a cat nap,” the page now reads, adding:

“We have reason to believe Steph wasn’t as involved in the CurryKitties as we thought. Until we’re sure he’s an active participant, we’re suspending the campaign.

The companies together released three CurryKitties modeled after Stephen Curry’s likeness and had planned to auction them directly from his personal wallet. The digital cats, which are structured as non-fungible ERC-721 tokens, were expected to rival the six-figure sale prices seen at the height of CryptoKitty mania in December.

In March, CryptoKitties raised $12 million in Series A funding from a group of venture capital firms and tech investors led by Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures.

The CurryKitties campaign was viewed as a way to bring CryptoKitties and other decentralized applications (DApps) further into the mainstream, as — despite a widespread belief that digital collectibles will be one of the first major consumer use cases for blockchain technology — DApps have yet to acquire many active users.

CryptoKitties, for instance, has just 452 daily active users, according to DApp Radar, and — excluding decentralized cryptocurrency exchanges — no Ethereum-based DApp has more than 1,000 active users.

CryptoKitties creator Axiom Zen did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside of business hours.