Bitcoin Ordinals project Taproot Wizards faced delays in the minting of its “Quantum Cats” non-fungible token (NFT) collection, experiencing two postponements.
The collection, comprising 3,333 cartoonish and futuristic cat illustrations, was initially scheduled to start its minting phase on January 29.
However, technical issues, attributed by Taproot Wizards co-founder Udi Wertheimer to overwhelming demand and server capacity constraints, led to a postponement to January 30.
Despite the rescheduling, issues persisted, leading to another postponement to February 1, 2024. In a recent X (Twitter) post, Wertheimer acknowledged the disappointment, expressing regret for not meeting expectations. He mentioned, “We disappointed you today.” He continued, “We had big plans for mint day and we didn’t live up to your expectations of us and to our expectations of ourselves.”
Despite website traffic issues, 1000 cats were successfully minted and will be distributed to buyers’ wallets after the minting phase on February 1. Additionally, the rescheduled whitelist minting will extend to 5 hours instead of the initially planned 2.
Taproot Wizards gained prominence in February 2023 for embedding the largest block in Bitcoin’s 15-year history, featuring a 4MB wizard image.
This achievement received recognition, notably through an artwork titled “FAR for Taproot Wizards,” crafted by artist and engineer Francisco Alarcon. The artwork fetched a remarkable $254,000 at Sotheby’s “Natively Digital” Bitcoin-focused auction, surpassing the high estimate by 12 times.
In November 2023, Taproot Wizards secured $7.5 million in seed round financing, with Standard Crypto, a venture capital firm focused on crypto, leading the funding round. This funding outcome positions the project to advance its mission of “repopulating Bitcoin’s 10-year-old wizard village.”
