Bitcoin ‘Epic Sat’ That Sold for $2 Million and Used to Enroll Ordinals Art – Featuring Grimes’ AI Voice

An “epic satoshi” or “epic sat” is an extremely rare satoshi – that is, 1/100,000,000 of a BTC – generated during each Bitcoin halving. The quadrennial event halves the amount of Bitcoin earned by miners (who support the network). And those epic sats would be especially valuable to collectors if they feature NFT-like Ordinals.

Bitcoin Ordinals project Book of Blob has inscribed its artwork on the latest epic via inscription 70,634,325, which was inscribed on Sunday. The “Spikes” collection, written from the epic satoshi, comes via the pseudonym Nuro, who says they are a doctor turned Bitcoin enthusiast and founder of Nuro Realm, Cypherpunk Labs and the Blob Army.

Nuro explained that the ‘Spikes’ collection delves into the exploration of the mind, brain and reality, while maintaining awareness on Bitcoin. He added that “Spike #1” was on the epic sat and was created in collaboration with software developers and Ordinals enthusiasts Eloc Remarc, Boppleton and Steaktoshi.

“We are experimental artists working at the intersection of art, science and technology, so it was a dream of ours to put our work in an epic place and inspire the community to experiment and create new art,” Nuro said . Declutter. “We believe that everyone is an artist, you just have to find your medium.”

“Spike #1,” Nuro said, is the first “neurogenerative” 3D audiovisual piece on Bitcoin Ordinals, and features his inscribed brain data manipulating the art in the inscription.

“Neurogenerative” is a riff on generative AI and neurographic art. Neurographic art refers to art designed to work with the subconscious mind. Projects like Neurotech startup Prophetic use generative AI to activate the subconscious and lucid dreaming during sleep.

Nuro said the idea to use Grimes’ Elf Tech AI technology came after a spoken word project didn’t have the effect he wanted, and Eloc suggested he give Grimes’ AI voice a try.

“It’s original art and music we’ve created that uses Grimes ‘freely and openly’ [Elf Tech] AI voice for some of the singing,” Nuro said.

In April 2023, Grimes announced the launch of Elf Tech and offered anyone who uses her voice a 50% royalty on AI-generated music using her voice. “Feel free to use my voice without penalty,” Grimes wrote on Twitter. In other words, Grimes is not personally involved in this project, but her technology is available to any creator.

“I watched it and saw that she’s a badass cypherpunk who said, ‘Fuck copyright, use my voice without punishment,’” Nuro said, paraphrasing Grimes’ own statements. “So I experimented with it and loved the ethos and how it sounded to give a more cosmic and digital vibe. So I’ve been using it since then alongside my own voice and Steaktoshi’s.”

Nuro said that while the Elf Tech program was easy to use, calling it fun and unpredictable, it was not without its problems, including downtime and uploading issues. Nuro is not new to the Bitcoin art world: in February, Cypherpunk Labs and Nuro Realm teamed up with Deezy Labs and Superchief Gallery to launch their San Francisco gallery dedicated to Bitcoin Ordinals art.

In April, the last of four “epic sats” was mined by Bitcoin mining pool ViaBTC and was auctioned on cryptocurrency exchange CoinEX. It was expected to fetch a significant amount of money, as Ordinals collectors place a premium on assets derived from rare satoshis. And indeed, a winning bid was ultimately made of 33.3 BTC, or $2.1 million worth at the time of the sale.

After the inscription of the Spike #1 Ordinal, a “child” version was etched as the EPIC•EPIC•EPIC•EPIC Rune #66429 using the Runes token protocol launched at the halving by Casey Rodarmor, creator of the Ordinals.

Since launch, EPIC•EPIC•EPIC•EPIC has seen just over $1 million in trading volume through prominent marketplace Magic Eden, with a market cap of almost $50 million at the current price of 79 satoshis (approximately $0.05 worth of Bitcoin).

Edited by Andrew Hayward