Sotheby’s inaugural inscription auction has achieved significant success, concluding with an impressive total of nearly $451,000 raised. From December 6 to 13, Sotheby’s New York conducted an online sale featuring carefully selected BitcoinShrooms from the Bitcoin ordinals project by Shroomtoshi.
As described on the company’s website, these distinctive pieces of art elegantly intertwine the nuanced narrative of Bitcoin’s history, culture, and core technical aspects. Each pixelated and handcrafted work contributes to a masterful yet playful guide, offering a unique perspective on the revolutionary world of Bitcoin.
The auction showcased three images from an unreleased pixelated collection, seemingly inspired by Super Mario. These images include the S shroom (where “S” denotes Self-Sovereignty), the Sovereign Individual, and the BIP39 seed, which serves as the foundation for deriving all “Bitcoin addresses and their corresponding private keys.”
The initial estimates for each of the three pieces ranged from $20,000 to $30,000. However, the results after the auction were remarkable:
– The S shroom sold for an impressive $241,300.
– The Sovereign Individual fetched $107,950.
– The BIP39 seed achieved a price of $101,600.
In total, the combined price for the three pieces amounted to $450,850. This figure is five times higher than the highest total estimated price of $90,000, underscoring the significant success of the auction.
Pixelated Recap of Bitcoin’s 13 Years
Sotheby’s characterizes Shroomtoshi as a digitally adept artist with a technical inclination and a pioneering figure in “the thriving Ordinal ecosystem.” The artist is recognized for possessing an encyclopedic knowledge of Bitcoin.
In the artist’s own words, Shroomtoshi describes the BitcoinShrooms collection as a pixelated retrospective of the first 13 years of Bitcoin. It serves as a tribute to the 8-bit style of art, evoking a sense of nostalgia for the 90s. The collection is envisioned as a means to disseminate art across tens of thousands of SSDs worldwide, a form of next-level cyber-vandalism. It also functions as a tool to raise awareness about Bitcoin and what the artist perceives as its core principles. There’s an ironic element to express frustration at what is seen as annoying pop elements and deviations in the Bitcoin space. Ultimately, the collection is a gesture of gratitude to collaborators and mentors, a remembrance of those who are no longer present but should be remembered. It encapsulates condensed knowledge and serves as a journey for the curious.
Ordinals serve as the non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the Bitcoin ledger. It’s essential to distinguish between ‘inscriptions’ and ‘ordinals,’ despite their often interchangeable use. An ordinal refers to the asset itself—the unique, serialized satoshi that can be transferred by its owner. On the other hand, an inscription is the encoded media content embedded within the ordinal.
Sotheby’s has established its presence in the NFT space, having previously sold digital collectibles from the bankrupt Singaporean crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC) for a total of $10.9 million in June. In May, the auction house also launched an NFT secondary marketplace, enabling users to purchase curated NFTs on both the Ethereum and Polygon networks.
