Alan Carr, a longtime product lead at Vancouver-based blockchain studio Dapper Labs and one of the original community developers behind CryptoKitties, is helping bring the viral project into a new phase.
This month, Dapper will launch a memecoin ecosystem tied to CryptoKitties, the 2017 NFT collection that helped establish the ERC-721 standard and briefly overwhelmed the Ethereum network during its peak.
The release builds on All the ZEN, a Telegram-based idle game Dapper launched quietly back in October. Carr says more than 250,000 players have used the game, which will now serve as the main way to earn CryptoKitties-branded memecoins. The new tokens will be tradable through PunchSwap, a decentralized exchange built on the Flow blockchain.
Dapper’s version is designed as a game-driven experience. The project combines token burning, trading challenges, and fictional news updates to give collectors new ways to interact with their NFTs.
The new memecoin activities are a sort of spiritual successor to KittyCalc.com, the legendary breeding tool originally built by Carr and co-creator Jordan Castro, who later co-founded the NFT project Doodles. The site helped thousands of early CryptoKitties collectors decode hidden traits and breeding strategies, which played a key role in onboarding users during the project's earliest days.
Ahead, Carr sat down with OpenSea to talk about what’s next for the feline-centric franchise and why he believes 2025 will mark a new era for the web3 game.
Note: This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

OpenSea: Let’s start with your background. What first brought you into the world of CryptoKitties?
Carr: I was working at Blizzard in Irvine on the web team, and I loved it there. But everyone wants to work at Blizzard, so the pay wasn’t great. Around the time my daughter was born, I decided to strike out on my own. We moved to Las Vegas to be closer to family, and I spent a year building apps. One was a beatboxing app called Beat Boxes. It was fun, but I quickly realized I was better at development than marketing.
Then in 2017, I stumbled on CryptoKitties. My boss asked me if I was going to “breed blockchain cats,” and I had no idea what he was talking about. That afternoon, I fell into a rabbit hole. I bought my first kitty, Cucumber. It was ugly and adorable and expensive. It cost me $27, which felt outrageous at the time. I realized I needed a second kitty to breed, so I spent hours figuring it out. That obsession led me to build Kitty Calc, a breeding probability tool.
OpenSea: What made Kitty Calc stand out?
Carr: The spreadsheet was intense. It was full of hidden gene data, trait probabilities, all the stuff collectors were trying to figure out. People were building similar tools, but nothing as detailed. When I shared it in Discord, some users said it was too much to look at. But others loved it. I teamed up with Jordan Castro, who is now with Project 2 and co-founded Doodles, and we turned it into a website.
We made it fun too. Jordan created poop ratings for traits. For example, the wingtips trait was a five-poop trait, which was a good thing. It was easy to use, visual, opinionated, and it became an essential tool for breeders.
OpenSea: Can people still use it today?
Carr: Not really. A lot of that functionality has been integrated into extensions or built into the CryptoKitties site. It is not as necessary now. And once Jordan and I joined Dapper Labs, we did not have time to maintain it. But it is what got us in the door.

OpenSea: What were some of your contributions once you joined Dapper to work on CryptoKitties? What can the community thank you for?
Carr: I introduced the Red Dot District. It let people breed with Dapper-owned cats that had rare genes. We charged a small fee so those genes stayed available to the community. It was controversial. Some folks loved it, others did not. But it helped prevent hoarding. I also worked on Purrstige Traits, which were seasonal and unlockable with breeding recipes. We even collaborated with artists like Hackatao.
OpenSea: Bring us to the present. What is All the ZEN, and how has it performed since launch?
Carr: It is an idle game, sort of like Cookie Clicker, except it’s built on Telegram. We launched it in October with CryptoKitties branding. It was the first big release from the IP in years. More than 250,000 people have tried it. It has especially taken off in Vietnamese gaming communities, where players help translate it and share strategies.
OpenSea: How did memecoins become the next step for the brand?
Carr: A lot of people are drawn to memecoins, but most have a half-life of a day. They pump, crash and leave users frustrated. That is not a great learning environment. We asked ourselves what would happen if we took CryptoKitties’ original energy and applied it to memecoins. What if this was a sandbox, a fun, lower-stakes way to interact with tokens?
And so, we came up with “Meowcoins.” That is what we are launching. A whole memecoin economy where the focus is on interaction, not speculation.
OpenSea: So you’re slating the launch to happen around Easter weekend. What happens then?
Carr: That will be our token generation event. Before that, we will start distributing starter coins through gameplay. If you play All the ZEN, you will earn CryptoKitties memecoins. If you want to skip ahead, the tokens will also be available to swap on PunchSwap. You will want to download a Flow wallet, either the browser extension or mobile app. Then go to PunchSwap to trade Flow tokens for memecoins.

OpenSea: What can players do with the Meowcoins?
Carr: We are running live events and quests, and introducing a “rumor mill” which is essentially a world-building, role-playing system inspired by games like Dungeons & Dragons. Each kitty will have secret traits that influence how well they perform certain tasks. Luck will also play a role, and various events will unfold that test each kitty's abilities. Their success or failure will depend on a mix of hidden stats and chance. News will come out about individual kitties, good or bad, and you will be able to trade coins tied to them based on how you think it will affect value.
OpenSea: This all sounds like a shift from how NFTs have been used before. Has your work on NBA Top Shot and Disney Pinnacle shaped how you think about this new CryptoKitties rollout?
Carr: Definitely. Both projects taught us how to simplify onboarding. Top Shot brought NBA fans into NFTs without asking them to learn wallets or token standards. Disney Pinnacle went even further. You could use a smartphone app and in-app purchases to collect and trade.
We are taking the same approach with CryptoKitties now. If you want to go deep, you can. If not, you can still have fun.
OpenSea: What do you think has changed about digital collecting since 2017?
Carr: When CryptoKitties launched, it opened the door for NFTs. Then in 2021, Top Shot brought it to a wider audience. Now in 2025, we are taking the next step.
What has changed is the level of input from collectors. These are some of the smartest communities I have been part of. People learned how to use wallets, track rarity and decode breeding genes. We have had hundreds of thousands of collectors across our platforms. We have learned so much from them, and they have helped shape where this goes next.
OpenSea: Do you think this year could be a turning point for the brand?
Carr: I do. We have been listening closely to what people want and what makes this space fun again. I think 2025 will be the year of CryptoKitties.
CryptoKitties’ token generation event is scheduled for around Easter weekend. To get started, players can join All the ZEN on Telegram and start earning CryptoKitties memecoins. More event and gameplay details will be posted to the CryptoKitties website in the coming weeks.
The mention of a token is for informational purposes only nor is it intended as financial or investment advice.