Vimeo/Emily Sheskin
- Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian told Fortune in a recent interview about his love of CryptoKitties, a popular game about collecting and breeding virtual felines on the blockchain.
- Ohanian says that CryptoKitties has become so popular because people on the internet love cats. That's because cat owners don't really get to socialize with other cat owners in real life, so they take it online.
Reddit cofounder and Initialized Capital investor Alexis Ohanian knows how the internet works.
In an interview with Fortune published Wednesday, Ohanian admitted that he owns a number of CryptoKitties - a blockchain-based game consisting of collecting, breeding and trading virtual felines. It's become popular among cryptocurrency enthusiasts, and some players have sold their kitties for upwards of $100,000.
More importantly, he knew why the game is so successful: "It's because the Internet loves cats," Ohanian told Fortune. " And he presented a compelling reason as to why that is.
He continued, "The reason cats are so popular on the Internet is because cat owners never got to associate or hang out with other cat owners doing cat-owner things," Ohanian said in the interview. "Until the Internet came along."
He compares the camaraderie between dog owners in a dog park, to cat owners virtually bonding over their feline friends online.
Ohanian's theory may be pretty spot on, considering he's both a proud cat owner and a cofounder of the "front page of the internet." Indeed, there are many, many cats on Reddit.
Good kitty. #BUIDL pic.twitter.com/btaq6b0cmw
- Alexis Ohanian Sr. π (@alexisohanian) April 13, 2018
Wait this actually makes sense.. @alexisohanian pic.twitter.com/fW7E573C1f
- Shaan Puri (@ShaanVP) May 2, 2018
I've got my PhD in internet π€ https://t.co/0Oz7GupcrZ
- Alexis Ohanian Sr. π (@alexisohanian) May 2, 2018