Yuga Labs‘ Ordinals-based Bitcoin NFT auction has come to an end and in 24 hours netted a total of $16.5 million USD — with the highest bids reaching just over 7 BTC or roughly $156,000 USD at the time of writing.

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

Of the thousands of bids placed, the 288 winning bids came in at a range of 2.25 BTC to 7 BTC, with losing bids being refunded by Yuga. Based on the results, the collection can be considered a success, though many in the Web3 space feel it came out of the blue.

With the hype around Bitcoin NFTs at a local high, the creative firm announced the launch of its Ordinals collection titled TwelveFold. The name nods to the fact that it is a “base 12 art system localized around a 12×12 grid, a visual allegory for the cartography of data on the Bitcoin blockchain.” According to Yuga Labs, the TwelveFold collection explores the relationship between time, mathematics, and variability.

Currently, the majority of crypto and NFT participants see BTC-based NFTs as behind the capabilities of ETH-based tokens, despite infrastructure being rapidly built. There are also Bitcoin maximalists that see NFTs as a negative for the chain, stating that it only creates network congestion and increases fees.

Others like user Giancarlo called out Yuga for its “stone age” approach of manually sending refunds back to losing bidders — a method that Casey Rodarmor, the founder of Ordinals tweeted was “degenerate bullshit.”

Dear @yugalabs,@veryordinally is right. Actions like this prove that for some entities and people: “Once a shitcoiner always a shitcoiner.”

If I, personally, Casey Rodarmor, ever see you, Yuga labs, the entity, fuck around with degenerate bullshit like this again, I will wash… https://t.co/COARsn4X0o

— Casey Rodarmor (@rodarmor) March 6, 2023

The reason for the backlash was not because the collection seemed to be unrelated to the firm’s entire ecosystem but rather because it took custody of all of the Bitcoin sent in by bidders with a simple promise to refund those who lost.

While Yuga Labs has the reputation to back such a promise, it does set a dangerous precedent that if adopted could become a method used to facilitate scams.

While Ordinals have the potential to shift the NFT ecosystem and provide new use cases, there is still quite some ground to cover in terms of security and user experience.

In other news, Ethereum announces a new wallet standard that assists in asset recovery.