On March 6, Yuga Labs kicked off its Bitcoin-based inscription project, TwelveFold, in an auction lasting 24 hours. Once the dust had settled, the company had raised approximately $16.5 million from 288 successful bidders.
According to an announcement made through the company’s official Twitter account, the successful bidders will receive their inscriptions within one week. In addition, those that did not succeed with their bids will receive their BTC back in 24 hours. However, this process wasn’t without controversy, with some observers critiquing the process Yuga chose for this sale.
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
In total, the auction raised 735 bitcoins, worth about $16.5 million as of press time. The highest bidder paid just over 7 BTC, or $161,000, for one unique piece of the collection, and the lowest bid was just above 2 BTC, or $50,418.
Following growing interest in Bitcoin inscriptions thanks to the Ordinals project, Yuga Labs announced in late February that it would launch an exclusive collection made up of 300 generative pieces inscribed on Satoshis.
Ordinals Creator Among Those Unhappy With Yuga Labs TwelveFold Auction
Unlike Ethereum-based NFTs, which have their own NFT marketplaces, Bitcoin’s limited smart contract capabilities mean it doesn’t have an open marketplace where creators can sell their creations. Thus, Yuga Labs, being one of the most prominent and earliest to launch collections on the Bitcoin network, choose to conduct an auction to sell the collection.
The process required those interested in the collection to send Bitcoin (BTC) to a Yuga Labs deposit address and place bids. However, this has attracted criticism from various corners given the risk involved. One critic who goes by the name Ordinally on Twitter dubbed the auction process a “scammer’s dream.” He goes on to add that Yuga Labs is “establishing a REALLY bad precedent running an auction like this.”
Yuga Labs Accused of Setting a Bad Example
No one doubts an established crypto entity like Yuga Labs will not return funds to those that don’t have successful bids. However, community members have theorized that scam projects could to adopt this model only to disappear with the bidder’s funds. It’s the reason that several critics believe that by opting to choose this model, Yuga is setting a bad example, especially for the Bitcoin NFT market, which is still finding its footing.
The criticism was echoed by Casey Rodamor, the brains behind the Ordinals project. He has gone to the extent of threatening to cut ties with Yuga Labs if they ever do such a thing again. That said, despite the backlash, the growing popularity of Bitcoin NFTs is expected to inspire ideas and development on the network that solve its current limitations.
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*All investment/financial opinions expressed by NFT Plazas are from the personal research and experience of our site moderators and are intended as educational material only. Individuals are required to fully research any product prior to making any kind of investment.
