Taproot Wizards Looks to Raise Over $34M in Long-Awaited Sale of Signature NFTs

A Bitcoin ordinals project said it aims to raise over $34 million from an art collection of Microsoft Paint-style cartoon wizards following a similar sale last year that raised $13 million.

Taproot Wizards plans to auction 2,121 non-fungible tokens (NFTs) of its signature "magic internet JPEGs," which harken back to a 2013 bitcoin meme: "magic internet money," later this month, according to an emailed statement. The Wizards were inscribed on the Bitcoin blockchain two years ago and are now being made available for sale.

The project last year sold a collection of 3,000 "Quantum Cats" to raise support for the Bitcoin improvement proposal (BIP) OP_CAT. Despite being marred by technical issues, the collection quickly sold out, raising 300 $BTC in the process.

Starting on March 25, the Wizards will initially be offered to buyers on a whitelist for 0.2 $BTC ($16,000), with any not taken being sold in a Dutch auction. The starting price will be higher than 0.2 $BTC and revealed closer to the auction, a spokesperson told CoinDesk in a Telegram message.

If all 2,121 NFTs sell for 0.2 $BTC, the project would raise around $34 million based on bitcoin's current price of around $80,000.

OP_CAT was included in Bitcoin's original code by pseudonymous founder Satoshi Nakamoto, who subsequently removed it due to concerns that it could expose the network to risks such as a denial-of-service (DoS) attack.

Developers have been attempting to bring it back in order to allow Ethereum-style smart-contract functionality, thus significantly adding to the utility that is possible on the original blockchain.

Taproot Wizards' goal is to "meme OP_CAT back into existence," through initiatives such as the $NFT sales, it said. Last month, the project raised $30 million in funding for the building of an ecosystem of applications using OP_CAT.