Following a successful $7.5 million seed funding round in 2024, Taproot Wizards, a collection of 2,108 Bitcoin-inscribed JPEGs using the Ordinals protocol, witnessed the sale of Quantum Cats, a vibrant digital art collection, which generated 300 BTC, valued at over $13 million at the time and more than double that now. Founded by Eric Wall, Udi Wertheimer, and Francisco Alarcon, Taproot Wizards seeks to "rekindle the magic of bitcoin," a concept that originated from a 2013 meme referring to BTC as "magic internet money." The project's focus has shifted towards enhancing Bitcoin itself through the proposed OP_CAT protocol, initially integrated by Satoshi Nakamoto but later removed due to memory usage concerns and potential vulnerabilities. This initiative is part of CoinDesk's Most Influential 2024 series. To view all nominees, visit this link.
The introduction of OP_CAT aims to upgrade the network, enabling more complex applications on Bitcoin by introducing "covenants" that dictate transaction functionality. As strong advocates of OP_CAT, the Taproot Wizards founders created the Quantum Cats collection to promote the proposal. According to Wertheimer, "CAT-based covenants would facilitate on-chain trading between BTC and stablecoins, borrowing with BTC as collateral, bridging bitcoin to other chains, and utilizing new layer 2 types."