Yuga Labs Inc., the creator of the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT collection, raised $16.5 million in an auction of its inaugural Bitcoin Ordinal NFT collection named “TwelveFold” that ended on Monday afternoon.
288 Bidders won one of the Bitcoin NFTs from the collection and Yuga stated that the winners will get their assets within a week, while the unsuccessful bidders will have their bid amounts returned within 24 hours. After the auction, Yuga posted the following on Twitter:
“The TwelveFold auction has ended. Congratulations to the top 288 bidders – you will receive your inscription within one week. Valid bids that did not rank in the top 288 will have their bid amount returned to their receiving address within 24 hours.”
The auction yielded 735 Bitcoin or about $16.5 million at the current prices. The highest bidder paid just over 7 BTC or about $161,000 for one of the NFTs.
NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) are objects stored on the blockchain and they represent the ownership of digital items such as music, video game items, art, event tickets, and other intangible and tangible assets. They are transacted on the blockchain and stored in crypto wallets, which means that they can be bought, sold, and traded using cryptocurrency.
Yuga announced the collection in late February and described it as a “base 12 art system localized around a 12×12 grid, a visual allegory for the cartography of data on the Bitcoin blockchain.”
The collection comprises 300 limited-edition pieces of generative art each inscribed to the Bitcoin blockchain. It is one of the latest highest-profile launches done via Ordinals, a new way of committing media and artwork to Bitcoin by permanently attaching them to an individual Satoshi, which is equivalent to a 1/100,000,000 of a full Bitcoin (BTC).
The winners went ahead to share their new NFTs online. One lucky winner tweeted:
“I was lucky enough to place a winning bid for a @yugalabs #Twelvefold #BTC ordinal. Can’t wait to see how this ages in the decades to come. Won’t ever catch me fading #yuga. Also… Massive props to @nftsupply for the help setting up a wallet etc. He’s a huge resource for us all.”
Auction Receives Backlash over Bidding Process
Yuga’s approach to the auction received a backlash from the crypto Twitter community over the weekend because those taking part in the process were required to send their bid in Bitcoin to a particular address controlled by Yuga.
This did not sit well with the online community. However, Yuga had clarified that the lucky winners would receive their funds and the rest would get their bid amounts refunded.
Bitcoin NFTs are new to the market and they barely existed months ago. A Galaxy Digital Holdings Ltd report shows that over 200,000 inscriptions have been minted on the Bitcoin blockchain and the market may hit about $4.5 billion by 2025.
