Yuga Labs’ first Bitcoin NFT collection, TwelveFold, draws over $2m in bids

Yuga Labs’ TwelveFold Bitcoin NFT auction drew  288 winning bids, with the top bid reaching 7.1159 BTC – or about $159,600. The collection’s 24-hour sale concluded around 3 p.m. PT, cementing Yuga Labs’ entry into the Bitcoin NFT market and their hugely successful Ethereum collections, such as Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunks. The cheapest bid was 2.2501 BTC – approximately $50,400 – while the most expensive was almost $160,000.

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.

— Yuga Labs (@yugalabs) March 6, 2023

Through minting, Bitcoin NFTs are inscribed onto Satoshis on the Bitcoin blockchain. This process creates digital artifacts when a file, like an art image used for TwelveFold, is written directly into units of Bitcoin called satoshis—the smallest individually identifiable units of Bitcoin. The Ordinal Theory protocol makes this process possible, resulting in NFTs called “Ordinals.” Ordinals are increasingly popular due to recent Bitcoin blockchain upgrades that make storing data in single transactions more cost-effective.

Yuga Labs faces criticism for taking custody of bidders’ bitcoin in NFT auction

Yuga’s recent NFT sellout has been met with great enthusiasm from the company. However, some market analysts have questioned the auction format that Yuga took control of bidders’ Bitcoin.

Yuga is establishing REALLY bad precedence running an auction like this. They are taking custody of bidders’ bitcoin with a promise to send back unsuccessful bids. Not doubting they’ll do that, but this model is a scammer’s dream, and credible players need to set better example.

— ordinally (@veryordinally) March 6, 2023

For the sake of @yugalabs, change this #ordinals auction model.

Asking to send bids to a wallet with a promise to refund the non-winning ones is a dangerous precedent.

Multiple auctions were ran before without the need to send out your funds before the auction was over. https://t.co/clyBJbT9YR

— Crypto.Edgar (@CryptoEdgar_) March 6, 2023

 Yuga replied to the criticisms, expressing its enthusiasm that Ordinals had succeeded in developing a permissionless method for NFTs on Bitcoin’s blockchain.

In an emailed statement, Greg Solano, co-founder of Yuga Labs, noted that the ordinal space is incredibly nascent and TwelveFold was meant to be an experiment. He remarked that many features Ethereum users take for granted—such as smart contracts and trustless transactions— don’t yet exist on ordinals. Currently, inscriptions are traded over the counter on discord with bids tracked on Google spreadsheets, and existing marketplaces appear to be governed by multi-sig escrows. Solano expressed excitement about new tools for trustless auctions and marketplaces, emphasizing that TwelveFold hopes to attract builders who can contribute to this new endeavor.