What is ‘TwelveFold’? All about Yuga Labs’ first Bitcoin NFT collection

Yuga Labs just announced the debut of their first Bitcoin-based project, TwelveFold, which consists of 300 limited edition generative art NFTs inscribed on the Bitcoin network.

Yuga describes “TwelveFold” as “a base 12 art system localized around a 12×12 grid,” which was created as a visual allegory for the cartography of data on the Bitcoin blockchain. The collection includes highly-rendered 3D elements as well as hand-drawn features which serve as an homage to existing Ordinal inscriptions, the majority of which are currently done manually.

The owner of the coveted, multi-million dollar NFT collection Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) is the latest to jump on the ordinals bandwagon, a new protocol launched in January by software engineer Casey Rodarmor that allows data — including text, images, videos, and even smart contracts to be permanently inscribed to an individual #satoshi, or 1/100,000,000 of a Bitcoin.

Ordinals have piqued the interest of the crypto world over the past month, and while the idea of NFT-like assets being on the blockchain has sparked differences in opinion between the more “purist” Bitcoin advocates and the rest of the community, there’s no denying that the new system is catching on in a big way. At the time of writing, more than 210,000 unique Ordinals have been minted, among them are notable projects such as DeGods and OnChain Monkey.

“TwelveFold” marks a significant departure from Yuga’s past offerings, as every other project they have done so far — including BAYC, CryptoPunks and Meebits — only lives on the #Ethereum blockchain, currently the most popular network for NFT projects. Also, each of the 300 pieces that make up the collection were crafted in-house by Yuga Labs’ own art team using 3D modeling, algorithmic construction and high-end rendering tools.

Due to the high-profile nature of this drop and the restricted quantity of available pieces, “TwelveFold” will be released in an auction-style format, with all Bitcoin bids accepted. Bidders will require a self-custodial Bitcoin wallet, as well as an empty Bitcoin address to get a piece if their bid is successful. Yuga will be announcing more details about timing and the mechanics in the coming week.