According to CoinDesk, Taproot Wizards' inaugural 'Quantum Cats' digital art sale experienced strong demand on Monday, despite multiple technical issues that delayed the planned mint three times last week. By the end of the public mint on Monday, all 3,000 NFT-like collectibles in the series had sold at a fixed price of 0.1 BTC ($4,265) each, generating total revenue of nearly $13 million. This amount surpasses the $7.5 million raised by Taproot Wizards from investors last year amid enthusiasm for the Ordinals inscriptions, also known as 'NFTs on Bitcoin.'
Most of the images were sold to whitelisted investors during a five-hour exclusive buying window on Monday, with 313 selling out in the first two seconds of the public mint. The Quantum Cats sale began last Monday but was paused due to technical problems that prevented buyers from completing their purchases, leading to widespread complaints on a Discord channel for the project. Taproot Wizards officials, including co-founders Udi Wertheimer and Eric Wall, postponed the mint's resumption twice more, citing the need for additional testing despite having fixed the issues.
The Ordinals protocol and its 'inscriptions,' created by Casey Rodarmor in early 2023, enable NFTs to be minted and stored on the Bitcoin blockchain. While the Bitcoin community is divided on the potential impact of the increasing minting activity, which has occasionally caused network congestion and increased fees, many crypto experts believe the trend has brought new energy to the development of the original blockchain.
