After a long wait of 2 years, the most anticipated new project on Bitcoin (Ordinals), Taproot Wizards, is finally set to launch tomorrow. Undoubtedly, this project is a leader in the Bitcoin NFT market in terms of influence. However, its minting price of 0.2 BTC is completely unbelievable in the current NFT market environment. So, what justifies this foreign-made NFT project being valued at a minting price of 0.2 BTC? In such a market environment, why are NFT players generally optimistic about the success of such a large total sales amount?
Analyzing the astonishing NFT minting data
Based on data from cryptoslam.io, we selected all Bitcoin NFT series with a total transaction volume exceeding $100,000 in the past 30 days (excluding BRC-20 token transaction volumes), which totaled less than $35 million. This means that, excluding long-tail assets, the average daily transaction volume for Bitcoin NFTs in the past 30 days was only about $1.15 million.
The total supply of Taproot Wizards is 2,121, with 36 being airdropped to some early supporters over the past 2 years, 100 airdropped to the most deeply engaged supporters, "Cloak" feature Quantum Cats holders, and very early lottery participants targeting Bitcoin Wizards holders, along with 200 reserved for the team. This means that only 1,785 Taproot Wizards are available for this release.
The total number of whitelist spots is set at 1,750. Among them, 828 whitelist spots have a minting price of 0.1 BTC, which were discounted for staking 2 Quantum Cats (the features of the 2 Quantum Cats must be 1 "live" + 1 "dead"). Additionally, 922 whitelist spots have a minting price of 0.2 BTC, which were selected from active users who actively participated in various activities of Taproot Wizards over the past 2 years.
If all 1,750 whitelist spots sell out, the Taproot Wizards team will receive 267.2 BTC in minting revenue, approximately $23.4 million. If there are any unsold spots, they will enter a Dutch auction mode along with the remaining 35.
Including the minting revenue of 300 BTC from the previously released Quantum Cats (approximately $13 million based on the Bitcoin price at that time), the Taproot Wizards team will have a minimum revenue of $36.4 million from minting. According to data from DefiLlama, this will place the Taproot Wizards team at 8th place on the historical NFT minting revenue leaderboard.
The minting price of 0.2 BTC is approximately 8.4 ETH, $17,560, or 127,000 RMB, which is quite an exaggerated price in the current NFT market.
Considering that Quantum Cats has never dropped below a minting price of 0.1 BTC when calculated in Bitcoin terms, theoretically, the cost of minting with a discounted whitelist by staking Quantum Cats is also 0.3 BTC in Bitcoin terms. Therefore, if we take 0.2 BTC * 2,121 as the initial market value of Taproot Wizards, it will start with a market cap of 424.2 BTC (approximately $37.2 million), placing it at 21st on the NFT market cap leaderboard.
Coincidentally, the three projects ahead of this 21st place are all Bitcoin NFTs: Quantum Cats (440 BTC, approximately $38.6 million), NodeMonkes (435 BTC, approximately $38.2 million), and Bitcoin Puppets (434 BTC, approximately $38.1 million). Quantum Cats has previously been regarded as the "preheating series" for Taproot Wizards, being the highest market cap Bitcoin NFT series and serving as a long-term "price reference" for Taproot Wizards.
If the opening price doubles, the total market cap of Taproot Wizards will surpass Solana NFT leader Mad Lads, moving to 7th place. As for the top 6, they represent a comprehensive challenge from Bitcoin NFTs to Ethereum NFT leaders.
When was the last time we saw such a crazy new NFT project minting? If we look at total minting revenue, it should trace back to the end of June 2023 with Azuki Elementals, which sold 10,000 NFTs for 20,000 ETH (approximately $38 million). If we consider minting price, it may go back even further to April 2022 with Moonbirds, which had a minting price of 2.5 ETH (approximately $7,500).
Why are NFT players still generally optimistic?
Secured $37.5 million in funding
On November 16, 2023, Taproot Wizards announced the completion of a $7.5 million funding round led by Standard Crypto, with participation from Geometry, Collider Ventures, StarkWare, UTXO Management, Bitcoin Frontier Fund, Masterkey, and Newman Capital.
Bitcoin Frontier Fund partner @TO shared his previous letter of intent to invest in Taproot Wizards on social media, stating, "This is the list of terms I sent to @udiWertheimer and @ercwl for investing in Taproot Wizards on April 5, 2023. After reading the (Taproot Wizards) promotion, to ensure I got in early, I wrote it in just 5 minutes."
Thus, @TO completed the basic investment letter of intent on a piece of toilet paper.
On February 5 of this year, Taproot Wizards secured another $30 million in Series A funding, also led by Standard Crypto, with participation from Cyberfund and Collider Ventures. This funding will be used to advance the development of OP_CAT, thereby promoting the realization of smart contracts on the Bitcoin mainnet.
These funding rounds are quite incredible. It is important to note that the OP_CAT opcode is still disabled on the Bitcoin mainnet, and although there is a BIP-347 proposal to re-enable this opcode, when the proposal will be passed and ultimately implemented remains unknown.
Udi Wizardheimer, the most "eventful" person in the Bitcoin ecosystem
Ordinals protocol creator @ordjingle once described Taproot Wizards founder Udi Wizardheimer as the "catfish of the Bitcoin ecosystem." An NFT project that has operated for 2 years from its inception to official launch and is still regarded as a leader in Bitcoin NFTs certainly has its reasons.
The first breakout of the Ordinals protocol occurred when Taproot Wizards filled an entire block on the Bitcoin mainnet with a 4MB image on February 1, 2023.
This image created the largest block and transaction in Bitcoin history at that time. This event caused a significant stir in the Bitcoin ecosystem, with Blockstream CEO Adam Back and Bitcoin Core developer LukeDashjr expressing concerns that Taproot Wizards' actions could rapidly expand the size of the Bitcoin blockchain, potentially leading to some facilities malfunctioning, and even suggesting that it was an attack on Bitcoin rather than an innovation. At the same time, it brought the Ordinals protocol into the spotlight of the entire crypto community for the first time.
In March 2023, Taproot Wizards officially shared founder Udi Wertheimer's journey on social media: "On the day Silicon Valley Bank announced its collapse and the USDC panic, I decided to launch the Taproot Wizard NFT project today and have people record videos of themselves bathing in wizard costumes." Cosplaying as a wizard and then filming a bathing video became another hot topic in the NFT circle, with even Yuga Labs co-founder Gordon Goner personally recording and releasing a bathing video to obtain a Taproot Wizard.
In early 2024, Taproot Wizards launched an NFT project called Quantum Cats, known as "量子猫" in the Chinese-speaking community. Similar to the official release of Taproot Wizards, the launch of "Quantum Cats" also occurred during a period of poor market conditions, yet it never broke its initial price and was regarded from the start as a blue-chip Bitcoin NFT series. At the height of AIXBT's popularity, Udi Wizardheimer once again made a move, prompting AIXBT to actively seek to own a "Quantum Cat," and after acquiring it, he changed his Twitter avatar to the "Quantum Cat." Of course, the primary goal of "Quantum Cats" is to promote the revival of OP_CAT, which has now received an official BIP proposal number, with the "Quantum Cats" community playing a significant role under Udi's leadership.
One of Bitcoin's Oldest Memes
The image of the Bitcoin wizard first appeared in February 2013 when /r/Bitcoin administrator theymos solicited creative ideas for community advertisements. Within an hour, a user named /u/mavensbot submitted a piece titled "Magic Internet Money Wizard." The creative painting style, eye-catching image design, and simple, direct cultural slogan quickly became the most popular response in the forum.
Later, this image was selected as the official promotional image for the /r/Bitcoin forum and was displayed on Reddit for a period of time. The straightforward and catchy design brought a lot of traffic to the /r/Bitcoin forum, with more and more people clicking in to see what this "not-so-advertisement-like advertisement" was trying to express and represent. Many people learned about, understood, purchased, and spread Bitcoin because of it. It is worth mentioning that at that time, Bitcoin was only $287.
In addition to commemorating the classic wizard image of the Bitcoin community, Taproot Wizards also believes that the Taproot upgrade is significant for Bitcoin NFTs, which is why they included the term "Taproot" in their project name.
It is noteworthy that the original creator of the wizard meme, mavensbot, is currently active in the Bitcoin NFT ecosystem. He has a Bitcoin NFT series called Bitcoin Wizards, which the Chinese-speaking community refers to as "小巫师" (Little Wizards) to distinguish it from Taproot Wizards. He will also release a wizard PFP series with a total of 10,000 pieces, and it already has the runes MAGIC•INTERNET•MONEY.
As for why the original creator is "small" while Taproot Wizards is "big," it is because Udi is indeed a marketing genius, and the influence of Taproot Wizards in the entire NFT space far exceeds that of Bitcoin Wizards.
Conclusion
We have previously conducted an in-depth analysis of Taproot Wizards and Quantum Cats. If you are interested in a deeper understanding, you can refer to:
Bitcoin OG joins Taproot Wizards, why is "wizard culture" so favored?
Understanding Taproot Wizard: The Native Meme NFT of Bitcoin
Has the era of Bitcoin NFTs changed? Why is "Quantum Cats" so noteworthy?
The launch of this NFT project is quite astonishing, even during the peak of the NFT market. Now that NFTs have not received market attention for a long time, will Taproot Wizards once again bring excitement to Bitcoin NFTs and the entire NFT market? We shall see.
免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。
