Thanks for your comments and concern.
As a reminder, Ordinals are valid Bitcoin transactions, compatible with Bitcoin's consensus protocol. As a Bitcoin user, you do not have to store this data, nor support the Ordinals protocol, but from the perspective of the Bitcoin protocol, Ordinals are valid with consensus rules, and to the extent they represent any external data, this data is tied to real Bitcoin. There is absolutely no token or shitcoin involved in the making of an Ordinal.
Second Bitcoin Magazine is an arts and culture company and our mission is to make Bitcoin fun. We have always supported Bitcoin artists, which is why we host physical and digital art auctions at our flagship event. We have been supportive of Bitcoin NFT efforts, including Counterparty NFTs, partnering with Blockstream’s Raretoshi NFT platform in 2021 and our upcoming Ordinals Alley installation at Bitcoin 2023. Bitcoin Magazine will always support artists and creatives that lend their talents to advancing our mission.
As for the auction, Bitcoin Magazine is not pricing these Ordinals, as our sale will use a Dutch auction model that only dictates the *maximum amount we will accept for their purchase.*In talking with the market we received a number of estimates regarding what these Ordinals would be worth, some higher some lower. Said again, this means our Ordinals could sell for 10 BTC or 0.25 BTC depending on the assessment of the market. During the auction, the price of our Ordinals will programmatically decrease over time until buyers set the price via winning bids. This will all be done in a trust-minimized way on the actual bitcoin blockchain.
Finally, Bitcoin Magazine is not endorsing Ordinals as a protocol. As a Bitcoin company, BTC Inc is continually evaluating market opportunities. This is our first foray into the Ordinals market and is part of our larger fact finding on the sector and its sustainability.
We continue to think that criticism of the Ordinals protocol and its impact on Bitcoin's ability to serve as global money is valuable and remain open to supporting this conversation on our editorial platform, including at the upcoming Miami conference.
We feel confident in our decision, and hope you'll join us at future events, if not Miami.