Bitcoin-Based Taproot Wizards Mint Starts on March 25

Taproot Wizards, the best-known collection spawned out of Bitcoin-based Ordinals, will start issuing inscriptions on March 25, according to an announcement posted on the project’s X profile.

The collection, which is spearheaded by prominent Bitcoiner Udi Wertheimer, will feature 2,085 unique wizards to be minted alongside the 36 honorary wizards that have been gifted to notable members of the Bitcoin community and contributors to the Taproot Wizards.

The mint will cost 0.2 BTC, or $16,000, for “top supporters” who have completed the Taproot Wizards engagement and community-building quests, according to the announcement.

Taproot Wizards’s quests gained significant traction amongst the crypto community during the Wizard Shower challenge in 2023. According to the team, users must complete the upcoming “Quest 5” for the best odds to qualify for the right to mint.

There will also be a Dutch auction process for those who are not whitelisted but are willing to pay a higher price to mint a wizard.

Taproot Wizards were among the first PFP collections to exist on Bitcoin, with a majority of the wizards inscribed in February 2023. Most of the inscription numbers are near the 150,000 mark, with Wizard #0001 being among the first 1000 inscriptions on Bitcoin after the Ordinals protocol was released in January 2023.

The team behind Taproot Wizards is composed of renowned builders and investors within Bitcoin and DeFi such as Wertheimer and Eric Wall, with art by the Bitcoin-focused artist 0xFar.

Developer Casey Rodarmor launched the Ordinals protocol on Jan. 21 2023, and enabled the creation of unique, non-fungible assets on the Bitcoin network, similar to non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on Ethereum.

Unlike modern blockchains which issue a different token standard, the Ordinals protocol works by inscribing satoshis (sats), which is the smallest denomination of a Bitcoin, with unique data. This allows users to create, collect and trade unique inscriptions on the world’s most secure blockchain.

Quantum Cats Collection

The group launched the Quantum Cats collection in Jan. 2024 as a prelude to the Taproot Wizards, and an ode to the original OP_CAT code written by Satoshi Nakamoto.

Quantum Cat holders who hold both a “dead” and “alive” cat can merge the two in a process called entanglement, and holders of entangled cats have the ability to mint a Taproot Wizard at a reduced price of 0.1 BTC. Also, a few Quantum Cat holders who own cats with the “golden cape” trait will be able to mint a wizard for free.

Taproot Wizards recently announced a $30 million raise led by Standard Crypto on Feb. 4.

Wertheimer told The Defiant, “The team plans on using the funds to build out an ecosystem of OP_CAT applications and protocols.”

The mint announcement comes during a dull period for Ordinals, with notable collections such as Bitcoin Puppets and Nodemonkes falling more than 90% off their all-time highs set in April 2024.

Despite the drawdown, Quantum Cats have remained one of the more resilient collections within the ecosystem, and have ranged between 0.2 BTC and 0.35 BTC over the last six months, after hitting an all-time high of 0.46 BTC in April 2024. The collection did fall 20% to 0.16 BTC after the announcement of the Taproot Wizards mint, as some users speculated on the role cat holders may or may not have in the mint process.

“Ordinals kickstarted an orange age of Bitcoin innovation. The amount of new startups and projects in Bitcoin absolutely blew up in the last two years and none of it would’ve happened without Ordinals,” said Wertheimer.

[UPDATE: Updates 03/11 @ 5:15 EST to correct misspelling in "Rodarmor"]