The Bitcoin Ordinals project known as Taproot Wizards has successfully secured $7.5 million in seed funding in a round led by venture capital firm Standard Crypto.
Additional contributions in the round came from prominent investors including Geometry, Collider Ventures, StarkWare, UTXO Management, Bitcoin Frontier Fund, Masterkey, and Newman Capital, the team behind the project announced on X on Thursday.
HOLD ON TO YOUR WIZARD HATS!
Today we are announcing a $7.5M seed round, led by @standardcrypto, to Make Bitcoin Magical Again
We broke the chain, we danced on stage, we took showers
We heard about bitcoin 10 years ago. And WE’RE HERE TO FIX IT
More in the thread below 🧙♂️ pic.twitter.com/xoNho6EKhs
— Taproot Wizards (@TaprootWizards) November 16, 2023
Describing itself as “magic internet JPEGs,” Taproot Wizards is on a mission to “make bitcoin magical again.”
The project is spearheaded by the popular Bitcoin educators and social media influencers Udi Wertheimer and Eric Wall, who famously dressed up in wizard outfits at the Bitcoin 2023 conference in Miami.
The digital art pieces offered by Taproot Wizards is a unique collection of Microsoft Paint images featuring wizards, reminiscent of an old meme in Bitcoin circles that refers to the original cryptocurrency as “magic internet money.”
The controversial Bitcoin Ordinals protocol
At the core of Taproot Wizards is the Ordinals protocol, which allows users to inscribe data into the Bitcoin blockchain itself, effectively creating non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the Bitcoin network.
However, the Ordinals protocol has since the beginning been a divisive topic within the Bitcoin community, where many consider digital art pieces a waste of precious block space that makes real monetary Bitcoin transactions more expensive for all users.
Despite the controversy, the protocol has gained popularity, with users inscribing everything from unique art creations to a video of Elon Musk onto the Bitcoin blockchain.
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