Taproot Wizards on sale 2 years after being inscribed on Bitcoin

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Wanna be a wizard?

Taproot Wizards, a collection of “magic internet jpegs” inspired by the 2013 r/Bitcoin wizard, are holding their first-ever public sale. This sale is happening two years after the Wizards were inscribed onto Bitcoin as Ordinals. Unlike traditional NFTs, Ordinals are pieces of data or art attached directly to satoshis (sats), which are 1/100,000,000th of a bitcoin.

2,085 Wizards will be up for sale through the project’s website starting March 25, with additional honorary Wizards to be inscribed soon and not included in the sale. The honorary Wizards will be given away.

Minting a Taproot Wizard will cost hopeful collectors 0.2 BTC (roughly $16,000 at time of writing), though it’s worth noting that there will be discounts for holders of Quantum Cats — another Bitcoin Ordinals collection from the same team.

If you own two “entangled” Quantum Cats — one with the “alive” trait and one with the “dead” trait — you can mint a Wizard for 0.1 BTC (about $7,900). The “entangled” mechanic plays off Schrödinger’s Cat, the famous quantum physics thought experiment where a cat inside a box exists within both a living and dead state until observed.

The Taproot Wizards price reflects their scarcity — only 2,121 exist, unlike more typical 10,000-piece collections. And yes, the price is steep, especially in this market. But with their cult-like following, I wouldn’t be surprised if they still sell out.

“It’s been quite the journey,” Wizards founder Udi Wertheimer said of the past two years since launching the project.

The mere existence of Ordinals art on Bitcoin has disgruntled some Bitcoin maximalists, with some calling it blockchain “vandalism.”

Instead, fans had to prove their worth through various bizarre-yet-hilarious displays of commitment. According to Wertheimer, some took it to extremes — showering in full wizard attire, leaping out of helicopters into swimming pools wearing robes and pointy hats, or even braving a car wash with the windows down, robe and all — just to get the team’s attention.

Unorthodox? Perhaps. But plenty were willing to embrace the absurdity for a shot at owning a piece of Bitcoin history.

“If someone wants a Taproot Wizard bad enough, they’ll find a way,” he said.

The Taproot Wizards team, which currently operates with 10 people, is actively hiring. Last month, they raised $30 million in a funding round led by Standard Crypto. They’re advocating for OP_CAT, a proposal that could add more functionality to Bitcoin and would be similar to what Ethereum’s smart contracts offer if passed. Originally created by Satoshi Nakamoto, OP_CAT was disabled in 2010 due to concerns over potential security risks and limited immediate use cases at the time. If reintroduced, it would allow Bitcoin scripts to manipulate and combine pieces of data dynamically, opening the door for more advanced transaction types.

Among other possibilities, it could enable covenants (rules restricting how BTC can be spent), improved smart contracts, and more flexible transaction logic. While not as complex as Ethereum’s smart contracts, OP_CAT could expand Bitcoin’s capabilities without compromising its security and decentralization-first ethos.

Most Wizards will be sold via the whitelist, and a few will be offered on Dutch auction. Another few are being set aside to be given to users for free, who have proved their interest in and loyalty to the Wizards, like one guy who replied on Twitter asking for a Wizard for 365 days in a row.

Why did they wait two years before offering the Wizards for sale?