In the world of nonfungible tokens (NFTs), Yuga Labs has made a name for itself with its blockbuster collections such as Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunks, completely dominating the market on Ethereum. However, the company has recently embarked on its first foray into Bitcoin NFTs with its inaugural TwelveFold collection. The 24-hour auction of the TwelveFold collection, which ended at around 3 p.m. PT today has yielded an estimated $16.5 million at current prices, with 288 bidders winning one of the Bitcoin NFTs.

The TwelveFold auction has ended. Congratulations to the top 288 bidders - you will receive your inscription within one week. Valid bids that did not rank in the top 288 will have their bid amount returned to their receiving address within 24 hours.

— Yuga Labs (@yugalabs) March 6, 2023

Through the Ordinal Theory protocol, Bitcoin NFTs are inscribed onto satoshis on the Bitcoin blockchain. Inscriptions, also known as digital artifacts, are created when a file, such as an art image, is written or inscribed into units of Bitcoin called satoshis, the smallest individually identifiable units of Bitcoin. Ordinals have recently gained a lot of popularity thanks to some of the previous upgrades to the Bitcoin blockchain which have made it much cheaper to store data in single transactions.

While Yuga Labs is celebrating another famous NFT sellout, several members of the crypto community expressed their concerns about the format of the aution, where Yuga Labs took full custody of all the bidders' Bitcoins, as this sets a "dangerous precedent" for potential scammers. One Ordinal technical member took to Twitter to voice his concerns, stating that "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 examples".

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

The TwelveFold NFTs are a marked departure from Yuga Labs' previous work. They are essentially generative art pieces, with each piece being a 12x12 grid that combines 3D graphics and hand-drawn features (a homage to how data is stored on the Bitcoin blockchain), that have been inscribed into the Bitcoin blockchain through the use of Ordinals. Each of the 288 pieces won at auction will be generated by the same code, and pieces won at a higher bidding price will not appear qualitatively different from pieces won at lower bidding prices. However, the process involves individually numbering all the pieces from the collection and then they are going to be generated according to their rank in the bidding process.