According to Blockworks, Taproot Wizards, a bitcoin ordinals startup, has appointed the pseudonymous developer Rijndael as its chief technology officer. The company recently raised $7.5 million in a funding round led by Standard Crypto. Co-founded by Udi Wertheimer and Eric Wall, Taproot Wizards is a generative art collection inscribed with bitcoin ordinals, a recent addition to the network that allows data to be inscribed as NFTs and other digital collectibles.
Bitcoin ordinals have experienced a surge in popularity in November, generating nearly $30 million in transaction fees since November 4, according to Blockworks Research. This increase in demand for blockspace has caused bitcoin transaction fees to become more expensive than Ethereum's for the first time in three years.
Before joining Taproot Wizards, Rijndael worked as the technical lead at Amazon's NFT project and more recently on Bitkey's self-custody wallet. In a thread announcing his new role, Rijndael expressed his desire to expand the Bitcoin culture and provide more opportunities for people to connect with a Bitcoin they can relate to. The incoming CTO is also looking to hire a full-stack engineer. Taproot Wizards plans to mint 2,121 of its NFTs, which are variations of a Microsoft Paint drawing of a wizard posted to Reddit to promote bitcoin a decade ago.
