Yuga Labs co-founder says first Bitcoin NFT auction won’t open doors to scammers
Yuga Labs co-founder Greg Solano doesn’t think the company’s latest auction — its first ever on the Bitcoin blockchain — opens the door to scammers.
“This only works because Yuga [Labs] is a trusted party and we can depend on this way,” Solano told CoinDesk TV’s “First Mover” on Tuesday. “It’s not something I would recommend to others.”
On Monday, the parent company of popular non-fungible token (NFT) aggregator Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) ended its 24-hour TwelveFold auction where it generated $16.5 million and awarded 288 NFTs to the top bidders.
Miami-based Yuga Labs, on the other hand, is now facing backlash after users criticized the company’s customized bidding process. Some argued that because Yuga Labs held the bidders’ bitcoin, it now sets a bad precedent for future projects.
Among those opposed to the project is Ordinal’s Bitcoin NFT creator Casey Rodarmor, who told CoinDesk TV’s “All About Bitcoin” later on Tuesday that not only does he support Yuga Labs’ project, but he called the company’s efforts “disorganized to the point of losing” . money [and] to make sloppy technical decisions.”
“They are not very creative as a company [and] their work has a certain kind of cultural cachet, but is ultimately, you know, trash, or let’s say overrated,” Rodarmor said.
However, Solano said Yuga’s decision to use the Bitcoin blockchain is the company’s attempt to be more transparent. By being explicit, the company can then “set the best precedent … given the limitations of running a trustless auction on Bitcoin that is simply not possible at this stage.”
Via the Ordinals protocol, the Bitcoin-enabled NFT collection required bidders to have a self-custodial wallet where they had to deposit the full amount of their bids directly to Yuga.
As part of the auction, bidders also had to have an empty wallet that could receive NFT. More than 3,200 bidders placed their bitcoin in advance. Unsuccessful bidders will “get their bid amount back” to their wallet addresses within 24 hours, the company said in a chirping.
“It was important to Yuga that we didn’t use something that was going to obscure trust, but actually put it at the center,” he said of the company’s use of the Bitcoin blockchain.
The auction, which Solano said is still in an “incredibly nascent” space, creates a way for Yuga to drum up developer interest while increasing the security budget of the Bitcoin chain and experimenting with it, he said.
“We are marketplace agnostic, except for the fact that we strongly believe in creative royalties and want to see marketplaces stand by creators,” Solano said.
UPDATE (7 March 2023 22:10 UTC): Adding comments from Ordinals Bitcoin NFT creator Casey Rodarmor in the fifth and sixth paragraphs.
