Yuga Labs’ First Ever Bitcoin NFT Collection ‘TwelveFold’ Auction Raises $16.5M in 24 Hours

Yuga Labs Inc., creator of the leading non-fungible token pool Bored Ape Yacht Club, raised $16.5 million in an auction for its first ever Bitcoin-based pool called “TwelveFold” that ended Monday afternoon.

A total of 288 bidders won one of the Bitcoin NFTs from the collection, and the company said winners will receive their assets within a week, while unsuccessful bidders will receive their bid amounts returned within 24 hours.

Nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, are a type of crypto-asset based on blockchain technology that represent the ownership of digital objects such as artwork, music, video game items, concert tickets, and other intangible or even tangible items. NFTs themselves are transacted on blockchains and held in crypto-wallets, meaning they can be bought, sold and traded for cryptocurrency, giving them an exchange value.

Yuga announced the TwelveFold collection in late February and described it as artwork inspired by Bitcoin, using a 12×12 grid in a “visual allegory for the cryptography of data on the Bitcoin blockchain.” Each of the 300 different generative artworks in the collection is designed based on that motif.

What sets TwelveFold apart from Yuga Lab’s other NFT collections is that it is the first it has ever released on the Bitcoin blockchain. All of the company’s other NFT collections are released on the Ethereum blockchain, including Bored Apes Yacht Club, Mutant Ape Yacht Club, Otherside virtual lands, Cryptopunks, and Meebits. Although it is possible to put NFTs on the Bitcoin blockchain, it is not common to launch them there.

To put them on the Bitcoin blockchain, Yuga used a special protocol called Ordinals, a recently released method for putting NFTs on Bitcoin. It allows the attachment of images to the Bitcoin blockchain via “satoshis”, which is the smallest possible term for bitcoin, named after the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto.

Using Ordinals, images are “inscribed” on the blockchain, and this has led to a booming number of NFTs added to Bitcoin since the project’s launch in January.

The auction creates disagreement about the bidding process

The auction’s methodology drew criticism from the crypto community because those participating in the process were required to send their entire bid in bitcoin to a unique address controlled by Yuga. According to the company, the winners will receive NFT and everyone else will have their winnings refunded.

This didn’t go down well with the community because it meant everyone would be out of their money, and the concept of handing over their funds to the company to hang on even if they were unsuccessful and waiting for a refund felt problematic.

The account of Ordinals-focused Twitter account “usually” too weighed in about the controversy, calling it all a “swindler’s dream” because they are “taking custody of the bidders’ bitcoin.” He added that while he had no reason to believe Yuga was doing this legitimately, it would set a bad precedent for future auctions.

Yuga is establishing REALLY bad priority by running an auction like this. They take care of bidders’ bitcoin with a promise to send back failed bids. No doubt they will, but this model is a cheater’s dream and credible players need to set a better example.

— ordinarily (@veryordinally) March 6, 2023

Casey Rodarmor, creator of the Bitcoin Ordinals project, also spoken up on Twitter, saying that he found their actions deplorable and that if he ever caught Yuga Labs in this behavior again, “I will wash my hands of you forever and encourage others, including those close to me, to do the same.”

Bitcoin NFTs are an emerging market, barely existing just months ago. According to a report by crypto lender Galaxy Digital Holdings Ltd., since December, more than 200,000 inscriptions have been minted on bitcoin and the market could reach an estimated $4.5 billion by 2025 – by comparison, the market value of bitcoin is currently $433 billion.

Image: Yuga Labs