Baidu launches a CryptoKitties-like service allowing for adoption and trade of digital puppies, which works on blockchain called Achain, using its ACT currency
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Context & Ripple Effects
CryptoKitties proved in late 2017 that a collectible-pet trading game could become Ethereum's top app by transaction count almost overnight, making consumer games the most visible demonstration of blockchain utility. Weeks after launching Baidu Trust blockchain-as-a-service, Baidu is now shipping a consumer face for that infrastructure: digital puppies adopted and traded on Achain using its ACT currency.
The strategic read is that Baidu is not licensing CryptoKitties but cloning the category onto its own chain — keeping the transaction volume, and the token demand, inside a Baidu-controlled stack rather than sending it to Ethereum.
First-order effects
- Baidu gains a consumer-facing blockchain product that gives ordinary Chinese users a reason to hold and spend ACT, while Achain inherits the transaction load that made CryptoKitties famous.
Second-order effects
- If puppy trading follows the CryptoKitties pattern, Achain faces the same scaling stress test that congested Ethereum, and rival Chinese platforms get a template for bootstrapping their own tokens with copycat collectible games.
Third-order effects
- The longer-term question is regulatory: China's draft rules would ban content that promotes gambling, and tradeable digital pets whose prices rise and fall sit close to that line — meaning the durability of clone-and-token strategies depends as much on regulators as on users.
- CryptoKitties' own trajectory is the cautionary case: after its launch surge it saw a sharp drop in daily active users, transactions, and average prices (per analytics sites) even as it raised $12M from a16z and USV (the Series A led by a16z and USV) — so Baidu's clone may inherit the hype cycle along with the mechanics.
The trend: Chinese internet giants are standing up their own blockchains and cloning proven crypto-native apps onto them, converting Western network effects into domestic token ecosystems.