Yuga Labs TwelveFold NFT Auction Sells Out: $16.5M in Sales

Bored Apes creators’ latest NFT collection scoops up $16.5M despite monkey business during auction.

by Tadas Klimasevskis. Fact checked by: Ciaran Lawler, Editor: Stefan Trapp

Published: March 7, 2023 │ 3:00 PM GMT

Bored ape sitting on a cliff looking at rainbow coloured balloons in the bright blue sky.

The inaugural Bitcoin NFT collection by Yuga Labs surpassed 3,000 bidders.
TwelveFold NFT Collection scores $16.5M sales, closing in the 24-hour auction.
Ordinals NFT protocol founder blasted Yuga Labs for setting a bad example.

288 lucky bidders are waiting to receive their generative art piece TwelveFold NFT after Yuga Labs ended their 24-hour auction. Inscribed onto Bitcoin, each of the 300 NFT abstract art pieces is dedicated to the twelve-fold system of the Bitcoin (BTC) blockchain, hence the name TwelveFold.

The lowest bid hit just above the $50,000 mark, while the highest was 7.1159 BTC, or $159,500, at bidding time. Deemed unfair by part of Crypto Twitter, including the coder of Ordinals protocol Casey Rodarmor, the first Bitcoin NFT collection attracted 3,246 bidders. After the auction concluded, Yuga Labs promised to send refunds to the unsuccessful bidders and dish out the NFTs in a week.

rip to the intern who has to send refunds for all the losing bids.
— tropoFarmer 🍌 (@tropoFarmer) March 6, 2023

12×12 Grid NFTs Become the Latest Trend

The highly successful Web3 company was the first of the major ones to join the Bitcoin NFT trend on Ordinals protocol. Coded by Casey Rodarmor, this 12×12 grid protocol inscribes digital art onto Satoshis, the smallest bit in the Bitcoin blockchain. Despite the honorable agenda, crypto enthusiasts on Twitter are pointing out that “auctions on Bitcoin is a bad idea.” Many report unregistered transactions, system glitches, and server overload.

Only win 1 TwelveFold @yugalabs
2 tx jammed in the last 20 minutes.
It's a bad idea to do an auction in BTC😅 pic.twitter.com/cFN2178HNM
— Keungz (@keung) March 7, 2023

Yuga Labs’ Bitcoin NFT project saw most resentment from Casey Rodarmor, the developer of Ordinals, who called out Yuga on “degenerate bullshit,” referring to the fact that the auction hosts took custody of all bidders’ crypto during the NFT mint event. Indeed, another developer VeryOrdinally blasted Yuga Labs for “bad precedence running an auction like this,” as it can encourage scammers to launch counterfeit mints in the same manner.

Yuga is establishing REALLY bad precedence running an auction like this. They are taking custody of bidders’ bitcoin with a promise to send back unsuccessful bids. Not doubting they’ll do that, but this model is a scammer’s dream, and credible players need to set better example.
— ordinally (@veryordinally) March 6, 2023

On The Flipside

According to Yuga, there’s no “qualitative difference” between the cheapest TwelveFold NFT and the most expensive one.

Why You Should Care

Yuga Labs is the leading Web3 company, specializing in blue-chip NFT collections which raised tens of millions through Bored Ape Yacht Club, Mutant Ape Yacht Club, CryptoPunks, and other trademark NFT collections.

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