In early 2023, with Ordinals Inscriptions growing in popularity on a daily basis, it seemed that every collector worth their salt was out to cash in on the Bitcoin NFT craze. While most focused their attention on CryptoPunks, OnChainMonkey, and other Ethereum-native projects joining the world’s oldest blockchain, a Bitcoin-focused effort has emerged to establish a new narrative around digital artifacts.
Led by an independent developer and longtime Bitcoin advocate, Taproot Wizards (TW) entered not just as the new kid on the Ordinals block, but with a mission to become much more than just another generative avatar project. With the tagline “Making Bitcoin Magic Again” and featuring art that has historical significance within the Bitcoin community, the wizard-themed project completely disrupted the still-developing Bitcoin NFT ecosystem in one fell swoop.
What is Taproot Wizards?
In essence, Taproot Wizards looks similar to the many dozens of PFP (profile picture) projects that came before it. presenting 2,121 unique, wizard-themed ordinals, the collection grew over time, brought about bit by bit through the project discord before being fully revealed on February 18, 2023. Although the project has yet to be minted as of this writing, he continues to receive praise for his forward-thinking sensibility covering a critical piece of Bitcoin history: the Bitcoin Wizard.
On February 18, 2013, exactly ten years before the Root Wizards Reveala user who goes by nickname “mavensbot” uploaded a raw drawing from a wizard who handles Bitcoin ar/Bitcoin on Reddit. Quickly becoming iconic within the crypto community as a sort of mascot for BTC, the image existed in numerous guises before finding new life on Web3 via Taproot Wizards.
It was initially assumed that those behind Taproot Wizards had only co-opted the original Bitcoin Wizard as inspiration for a PFP project. But on the 10th anniversary of the initial release, it was announced that mavensbot was, in fact, involved in creating the art for the TW collection. Subsequently, a secondary collection Bitcoin Wizard launched, regardless of the multitudes of Taproot Wizards already revealed. It served both to onboard users to the Bitcoin Lightning Network and to benefit mavensbot for its masterful creation and years of blockchain advocacy.
Who created Taproot Wizards and why?
Taproot Wizards would be nothing without mavensbot’s original contribution to Bitcoin Reddit. But magician drawing impact it goes beyond simply inspiring TW’s art. As udi wertheimer — developer, cryptocurrency advocate, and member of r/Bitcoin when the original Bitcoin Wizard was published, the mavensbot drawing was a major event that nearly doubled the size of Bitcoin Reddit at the time. This event, and the cultural shift it marks, would ultimately inspire Wertheimer to harness the wizard’s IP to create the modern, non-expendable counterparts of him.
“The 2013 Bitcoin Wizard brought in a lot of new people [to r/Bitcoin]. The good thing about it was that it was this very simple drawing. It looks like it was done in Microsoft Paint, and it just says ‘magic internet money: join us,’ that’s all,” Wertheimer said in an interview with nft now.
“People really liked that. So we did a twist on that. We said, ‘Okay, let’s say it’s the magical Internet JPEG and invite people to join us.’ This collection of assistants is really supposed to be for people who believe in Bitcoin and want to see it succeed.”
By the time the ordinals started moving forward, Wertheimer, a major proponent of Bitcoin over the years, was apparently already light-years ahead of most on Web3. Due to his nature as a Bitcoin native, he saw Ordinals as an opportunity to shake up the seemingly stagnant bitcoin community and he took it upon himself to do it in a grand way. On February 1, at an event to announce Taproot Wizards to the world, Wertheimer purposely orchestrated the largest block and transaction in Bitcoin history, achieving the absolute maximum BTC block size of 4MB, something many, until that moment, they thought it was impossible.
Perhaps unsurprisingly though, not everyone was happy with the sizable block, or Taproot Wizards for that matter. Considering that a large portion of Bitcoin maximalists already opposed ordinals for a number of reasons, including their nature to cause congestion on the blockchain, Wertheimer’s deliberate action of maximizing a BTC block meant that the use of the network would stop if only for a short while. Of course, while this was not well received by the keepers of tradition, it was nothing more than a show of force in Wertheimer’s battle plan to bring innovation back to Bitcoin.
The intention behind the project.
At first glance, Taproot Wizards is a collection of PFPs featuring thousands of ordinal NFTs of roughly drawn wizards. This is true. But by leveraging the obvious hype factor and tradability that comes with PFP projects, Wertheimer aims to create a bit of a Trojan horse of Bitcoin knowledge. Although collectors may come for the art, through disruption, community building and reestablishing BTC’s longstanding spirit of rebellion, Wertheimer hopes to inspire a new wave of interest and innovation in Bitcoin.
Driven by the belief that Bitcoin has essentially lost momentum in the wake of Ethereum’s NFT successes, Wertheimer says he’d love to see the unique, creative and humorous culture once established by early crypto adopters return to the blockchain. of Bitcoin. But for this to happen, he feels Bitcoin maximalists will need to get off their high horses and accept that the blockchain can be used for more than just transacting. That is why he chose to launch TW with a 4MB Bitcoin block.
“The statement we were trying to make is, ‘look, whatever the Bitcoin protocol allows us to do, we’ll do it.’ You may have some preconceived ideas about what is okay and what is not, but we will only do what the Bitcoin protocol allows us to do,” Wertheimer said. “I don’t think everything we do is going to be brilliant, but we’re going to attempt. We’re going to start testing things that are missing from the Bitcoin culture.”
Wertheimer noted that while he doesn’t expect everyone to appreciate ordinals, users don’t have to think they’re good to benefit from them. But in the spirit of innovation, he says that he disagrees with Bitcoin’s current ethos of perfectionism and believes that failure must be achieved in order to achieve progress.
“It is not possible to have software that is completely perfect. I think a much better approach to life, and Bitcoin as well, is that failures and mistakes are going to happen, but they have to be accepted because that’s how you correct your path. This is how progress is made in all fields,” Wertheimer said.
“It seems that people in Bitcoin have been very focused on avoiding mistakes and failures when in reality they have been preventing their progress. The only way not to make mistakes is not to move at all. So I hope [Taproot Wizards] You can reignite this passion for experimenting, trying things and learning from mistakes.”
The future of Taproot Wizards
Whether or not Taproot Wizards catches fire as the next big NFT project is anyone’s guess. But while speculation can only get users so far, it seems Wertheimer’s efforts are destined to have a much bigger effect on the Bitcoin blockchain than a simple collection of PFPs. In the spirit of generating renewed interest in BTC, Wertheimer says he will focus primarily on education, prompting members of the TW community to act on their own rather than offering periodic incentives to those who stay.
While Taproot Wizards fans will surely be rewarded for their support and participation over time, as we recently saw the NFT landscape (and collector rewards) change significantly in 2023, Wertheimer’s methodology might as well inspire new ways of managing Ordinals projects. But as Web3 matures, Taproot Wizards may have served the blockchain better by highlighting one salient truth: stagnation and complacency surely won’t help NFTs go from niche to mainstream.
