Digital pets have been purring electronically for almost 20 years. Starting in the late 90s with physical toys that included a digital element, like Furby and Tamagotchi, before moving online to Neopia where children earned Neopoints to feed and groom their Neopets. Last Holiday Season saw the trend move back into the physical world when Hatchimals were named the "hit toy of the season". This year digital pets have gone virtual once more with a special 2017 twist. CryptoKitties is an online game where digital felines can only be purchased using Ethereum, a blockchain-based currency.

CryptoKitties was developed by Axiom Zen and launched at cryptokitties.co exactly a week ago. Following the initial press release there were a couple of key articles about the new game at qz.com and techcrunch.com which sent traffic to the nascent site soaring.