Breeding (NFT Trait Combination)

Breeding refers broadly to any NFT gamification mechanism wherein two NFTs are combined to produce a new NFT that inherits a blend of traits from both 'parent' NFTs.

CryptoKitties, an early Ethereum-based NFT project, introduced breeding in 2017. In CryptoKitties, bred offspring inherit traits from 256-bit genomes with DNA and associated attributes ('cattributes') carried by each parent.

Similarly to CryptoKitties, more recent NFT-based games such as Axie Infinity and STEPN employ the breeding mechanic in their ecosystems' cryptoeconomics as an inflationary supply mechanics; breeding allows users to increase the population of NFT assets for greater trait diversity and for supporting increased numbers of players.