How UniCats works on-chain
Every UniCat is an NFT-like record in the Unipeg contracts: a stable ID, a compact seed that renders into traits, and a token balance that stays locked to whole cats. Trade in the pool, breed new lines, or list a stud to earn fees.
1. The collection: ID + seed
Each cat is a token ID plus an encoded seed. The seed unpacks into body, eyes, horns, wings, colors, and generation. Metadata also tracks parents, birth time, breed count, and cooldown.
Art & genesis-only traits
The first 100 cats minted from the pool can roll every variant index in each trait list. After that, new pool mints only draw from the tail of each list: the first 5 options per category (leading background / palette indices and lowest layer ids) are reserved for those early mints and cannot be re-rolled by buying from the pool again.
For artwork, put founder or rare looks in the first slots of each on-chain layer list and the first swatches in each palette so they line up with that rule. Breeding still mixes parent traits, so exclusive pieces can show up on children if a parent already has them — the restriction applies to fresh pool randomness only.
2. Earn a whole cat by swapping
$UCAT is the Unipeg ERC-20. The contract keeps one whole token unit aligned with each cat you hold. Swap ETH for $UCATin the Uniswap v4 pool; as your balance crosses each whole number, the system can mint or assign cats so ownership stays in sync (pool addresses don't hold cats).
Each cat stays in sync with 1 whole $UCAT — swap in the pool until your balance crosses a whole number to grow the collection.
Pool swaps also refresh hook entropy, so active trading feeds randomness for newly minted seeds.
3. Breeding, fees, and cooldowns
Pick two parents you own with the same generation (Gen 5 cannot breed). Pay the current protocol fee in ETH. The child inherits traits slot-by-slot from either parent. A successful breed mints the child and 1 whole $UCAT to the breeder.
0.02 ETH base + surcharge 0.01 ETH × n² with n = completed global breeds (each breed adds 0.01 × (2n − 1) ETH so the surcharge sums to 0.01 × n² at steady activity). The surcharge decays on-chain when breeding is quiet. Pay exact wei — no rounding shortcuts.
Cooldown by generation
After breeding, parents rest. Lower generations wait longer before they can breed again (preview tiers below).
4. List a stud, earn ETH
Put a sire on the breeding page. While listed, it's transfer-locked. When someone breeds using your listing, they pay the protocol fee plus your stud fee; you keep the stud portion in ETH. Buyers keep the child.
matron + your listing