As with anything in life you often have options, there are regular forks in the road that that present themselves and along the way we get to discover new place, new people, new things. This is very much how my journey down the rabbit hole began. I had heard (albeit quietly) about Bitcoin early on, but at that time in my life I chose not to pursue that path. Hindsight can be 20:20, they say, and in some ways maybe I missed out. But I look back at where I was in my life at that time and, had I become involved in Bitcoin early, I'd have concerns for my health and lifestyle now. Instead, I took the path of the scholar and after a break with working at unenjoyable jobs I committed myself to relearning things I'd forgotten, this path took me along a new route where I was lucky enough to learn that programming is what I am good at and what I enjoy to do. Since then this voyage of continued learning carried me forward and still does. A few years ago Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency were back on my radar again, since then I've not been able to learn enough and just in the last few years watching the speed of evolution has been head spinning to say the least, but no less enjoyable for it.
So at this stage you may be reading this article wondering about where this little introspective trip down memory lane is taking us. Well, that is just it, it lead me and leads you right into the open arms of a discovery of history. That is how I think of the Bitcoin Origins series, a chance to discover and enjoy the history of the birth and development of Bitcoin, the cornerstone project upon which all others have been built...in the beginning there was Bitcoin.
What is Bitcoin Origins?
So what is Bitcoin Origins, well the development team describe it as this:
Bitcoin Origins is a highly scarce series of digital collectible cards immortalizing the most significant moments in Bitcoin’s history. It was created to help educate the world about Bitcoin in a fun and engaging way that allows fans to collect a treasured piece of BTC history. This is a three-part series broken up into 15 distinct “Moments."
Does that cover it? Yes and No, in my mind it goes further than this. Bitcoin Origins (BTCO) is two things to me; an opportunity, and an invitation. Similar in some respects to the global digital currency which it depicts, BTCO is an invitation to the digital community to be a part of something collective. As with the early stages of any project it is an opportunity to learn, discover and create.
So, as you've probably gleaned from the statements above in its most simplistic form we can think of BTCO as an NFT project that allows us to collect and enjoy reliving the history of Bitcoin and following its development. In its more realistic form it is the meeting point for a collected group of individuals whom want to enjoy learning about and contributing to something......Together We Create Value.
In this article I'm going to review what I've learned about the project so far as well as letting you know when and where you can get involved. If you're intrigued by this even a little I recommend checking out some of the community links below and then jumping in head first, I look forward to seeing you on the other side.
About the Collection
As described in the introduction the BTCO series is a collection of 15 key 'Moments' in the history of the creation and development of Bitcoin. These moments are immortalized in Non-Fungible Token (NFT) form. Before going much further into the collection itself I'll just briefly cover a few things we need to know about these NFTs and how we can own them.
- NFT: "Non-fungible token (NFT) is a special type of cryptographic token which represents something unique; non-fungible tokens are thus not mutually interchangeable." - Wikipedia
- WAX: The main platform on which BTCO exists
- "The Worldwide Asset eXchange™ (WAX) is the world’s leading decentralized video game and entertainment network." - WAX website
- "We deliver the safest and most convenient way to create, buy, sell, and trade virtual items (NFTs) - to anyone, anywhere in the world." - WAX website
- Wallet: The easiest places to start with this collection is by creating a WAX Cloud wallet - https://all-access.wax.io/
Collections Details
So moving onto the collection itself. As we've mentioned there will be 15 moments, or 15 main 'releases' for this project. Currently there have been 3 moments released with the following names:
- Moment 1 - White Paper Creation
- Moment 2 - The Genesis Block
- Moment 3 - The First Transaction
Each moment is made up of a range range of different NFTs including:
- Death Card Inserts - Which depict times when BTC was famous declared 'dead'
- Glitch Card Inserts - Which show issues including bugs/hacks and other stumbling blocks along the road to development
- Key Moment Inserts - Which portray pivotal moments of success
- Success Cards (Legendary) - Moments which show the of the legacy financial system into the new decentralized network where the power is redistributed
- Block Rewards - Redeemable tokens (found only in 4MB blocks) for extremely rare cards not available as part of the moment sale
- BTCO Tokens - Non transferrable loyalty tokens only gained from opening blocks and used for special prize giveaways
The NFTs are obtained (at random) through the unboxing or 'mining' of blocks, which are purchased with WAX from https://www.btcorigins.com/buy. As it stands there are three block levels with varied drop rates:
- 1MB
- 2MB
- 4MB
These are the insert drop rates from the latest moment.
As you can see from the drop rates image below there are a variety of rarity levels to the base cards. For this moment they followed this order/availability rate:
- Genesis: max 600 available - https://wax.atomichub.io/explorer/template/bitcoinorign/51974
- Open Source: max 296 available - https://wax.atomichub.io/explorer/template/bitcoinorign/51977
- SHA-256: max 251 available (first of the animated levels) - https://wax.atomichub.io/explorer/template/bitcoinorign/51980
- Lightning: max 126 available (animated with lightning) - https://wax.atomichub.io/explorer/template/bitcoinorign/51983
- Anonymous: max 78 available (full animated) - https://wax.atomichub.io/explorer/template/bitcoinorign/51986
- Sketch: max 49 available (concept artwork) - https://wax.atomichub.io/explorer/template/bitcoinorign/51989
Here is what they look like though this doesn't do them justice at all. It is better to look at the originals linked above.
About the Community
So from what you've seen so far of the high quality art works you'd think that would easily be enough to get folks stoked about collecting these. However, this is where the BTCO team departs from the normal. Instead they have a separate thread running alongside these individual moments, that is geared towards the community and promoting positive connections between individuals. You see all of these moments and everything released forms part of a hunt for the golden rabbit and a 1 BTC prize.
The hunt is performed by the community and is driven by the unearthing of clues found in a few different places:
- Key Cards - These cards are found outside of the normal moment releases.
- Satoshi Cards - As those above, these are the first 4 cards to be released and are gifted to the community members by the creators.
- The Moment Cards - Clues are hidden within the the moments themselves
In addition to the clues found in the cards the community is also offered guidance and encouragement from the mysterious GITM. These are posted on a separate channel in Telegram "The Uprising" (https://t.me/joinchat/TYK_vRlqBWfH3-7-GRs6dw) and it is suggested that the individual(s) providing this information were potentially linked with the early stages of Bitcoin's development. Who knows, this person (or persons) may even be the ever present, always just out of sight, Satoshi Nakamoto.
If you want to get involved in this hunt, then my recommendation is to join the following telegram channels:
- https://t.me/BitcoinOrigins - The main channel for general discussions
- https://t.me/searchforsatoshi - The hunt discussion channel
Finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't write a short sentence or two about one of the strongest advocates for the BTCO community and project the puzzling "Blue Wizard". I'm not going to speculate on whom this person really is. What I will say is that it is clear he believes in the BTCO project as can be seen from being one of the top holders of the BTCO collection. He can often be spotted jumping into the channels to encourage the hunters and reminding the holders to double down in our efforts. If you're interested in a separate but just as challenging and rewarding puzzle then check out the Blue Wizard's 30 level puzzle, where the winner will receive 5,000,000 WAX (that isn't typo, it is 5 Million).
- https://t.me/joinchat/Hgueq2opukhhzV53 - The challenge starts here
My Collection
Since we've been through a few pretty awesome cards above I though it would be good to share where my collection (although humble) currently stands. So far I purchased my blocks from Moment 3 only. Here is what I got:
- 4 x 1MB blocks:
- Relic of Future Past - Genesis Edition - 285/600
- Relic of Future Past - Genesis Edition - 342/600
- Starsong - Genesis Edition - 81/600
- Death Card (M3) - Special Insert - 15/21
- 1 unopened block - (Dragon Token? Maybe?)
- 1 x 2MB block:
- Starsong - SHA-256 Edition - 181/251 (I actually got two of these so I traded for the one below)
- The Age of Enlightenment - SHA-256 Edition - 230/251
- Key Moment (M3) - Special Insert - 293/378
Final Thoughts
As with Bitcoin in the beginning I had heard (albeit quietly) about BTCO and seen some of the cool artworks, but at that time I made the active choice not to go down that rabbit hole. Fortunately for me, some things will not be denied and it was while having a little go at one of the Blue Wizards mini puzzles that I took notices of BTCO project again. I'm sad in a way that I missed out on the first two moments, but then also perhaps that wasn't the right time for me to jump in. Since then I'm feeling much more confident with my footing in the NFT world and have very much opted for the red pill.
If you are like me and you're interested in following this project and getting involved in the community then I urge you to jump into the telegram groups and just start chatting. The group is very welcoming, there are incentives for active participation as with all projects. For example all the different rarity level #1 mints were given out in a random lottery to block owners last week at the end of Moment 3. It was great to see so many folk all really happy to be receiving their prizes and a testament to the BTCO quality production team and their active encouragement of the community.
For now I'll sign off with a sneak peek of what we expect from moment 4......
Look forward to seeing you around the BTCO channels, good luck y'all, remember "Learn to Hold"...
