The startup has a limited mint of 2,121 wizards, a number paying homage to the total supply of bitcoin (21 million).
Quirky startup Taproot Wizards has secured $7.5 million in seed round financing, with Standard Crypto, a crypto-focused venture capitalist, leading the funding round. The company aims to inject a sense of “magic” back into the Bitcoin community, with a mission to revitalize Bitcoin’s decade-old wizard village.
In a post on X, Taproot Wizards declared, “We heard about bitcoin 10 years ago. And we’re here to fix it. Our mission is to repopulate Bitcoin’s 10-year-old wizard village.”
TechCrunch, breaking the news of the seed round, revealed that Taproot Wizards is a “Bitcoin-focused Ordinals project.” The startup has a limited mint of 2,121 wizards, a number paying homage to the total supply of bitcoin (21 million). So far, less than 1% of this supply, specifically 20 Taproot Wizards’ Ordinals, have been inscribed.
Ordinals, introduced in January, play a crucial role in indexing and tracking every satoshi (Bitcoin’s smallest unit) across the network. The process of “inscription” assigns images or other data to individual satoshis. Ordinals can function as either individual NFTs or fungible BRC-20 tokens.
Taproot Wizards is distributing Ordinals to active community members who have engaged in the organization’s “wizard school” or demonstrated their dedication to Bitcoin. The startup hosted a party in Amsterdam last month, where participants with the most impressive wizard costumes had the chance to win one of the community’s coveted Ordinals.
Backing for Taproot Wizards extends beyond Standard Crypto, with support from other notable investors including StarkWare and Bitcoin Frontier Fund. Notably, no Ordinals were sold to investors in this funding round, with Taproot Wizards humorously suggesting, “If our investors want any, they should take a wizard shower!”
In a related development, crypto developer Udi Wertheimer and Bitcoin mining company Luxor collaborated on a wizard-themed NFT collection in February. The first Taproot Wizard NFT was mined in a block at that time.
The news of Taproot Wizards’ funding coincides with the surge in transactions on the Bitcoin network, reaching an all-time high in September, partially fueled by the excitement surrounding Ordinals. As the startup continues to infuse creativity and a sense of wonder into the Bitcoin ecosystem, the crypto community eagerly awaits the impact of its magical touch.