Guide to Bitcoin Ordinals Collections: What Are Quantum Cats?

Bitcoin’s Taproot upgrade in 2021 has enabled various new developments since its implementation, including Ordinals. A year after the Ordinals protocol was introduced, many innovative collections have made their own mark on the world’s oldest blockchain. 

One such project is Quantum Cats, an Ordinal collection launched by the founders of Taproot Wizards. As of this writing, Quantum Cats is still one of the most popular Ordinals collections with a floor price of 0.33 BTC on Magic Eden. 

In this article, we will discuss all you need to know about Quantum Cats and the project's impact on the Bitcoin ecosystem.

What is Quantum Cats?

Quantum Cats is an Ordinals collection that consists of 3,333 pieces. The collection was announced on January 12 via the project’s official X page and has attracted considerable interest for its goal of promoting awareness for OP_CAT.

The “Genesis Cat” auction marked a special milestone for the collection. This unique piece, created by digital artist FAR, stood out as the sole 1/1 in the series. It was auctioned at Sotheby’s on January 22 for $254,000 , underscoring its exclusivity. It has remained one of the most successful collection launches in the Bitcoin Ordinals ecosystem, raising over $13 million. 

History of Quantum Cats

Udi Wertheimer, Eric Wall, and FAR founded Taproot Wizards to drive innovation on the Bitcoin network. As pioneers in exploring the potential of Ordinals, they launched the Taproot Wizards collection as a free mint, marking their initial success. Following this, the team introduced Quantum Cats. 

The primary goal of Quantum Cats is to advocate for and support OP_CAT. OP_CAT is a proposed opcode that would significantly improve Bitcoin's scripting capabilities, enabling more complex applications on the Bitcoin blockchain.

Wertheimer and Wall have consistently expressed their belief in the necessity of innovation within Bitcoin's ecosystem. As such, they wanted to revive discussions around the implementation of OP_CAT, which would possibly be a key advancement for Bitcoin.

Quantum Cats Concept

Quantum Cats was designed using the recursive inscription technique, which allows each cat to change over time. The collection used 10MB of on-chain data, surpassing the typical 1MB Bitcoin block capacity. This encryption ensures that the future evolutions of these digital cats remain a mystery until their predetermined unveiling, adding an element of anticipation and surprise.

As we mentioned, Quantum Cats is designed to bring awareness to OP_CAT. OP_CAT is a depreciated opcode (operational code) that was originally a core part of Bitcoin's scripting language written by Satoshi. This opcode allowed for the concatenation (joining) of two strings of data end to end within Bitcoin's scripts. 

OP_CAT was removed in 2010 due to security concerns. For example, OP_CAT could be used to create excessively large or complex transactions. In turn, this could potentially subject the Bitcoin ecosystem to issues like denial-of-service attacks.  The implementation of Taproot, however, has led many to believe that the original concerns with OP_CAT have been addressed.

The creators of Quantum Cats and the collection's community members believe that OP_CAT would enable additional use cases as originally intended and, if implemented, the opcode could bring more functionality back to Bitcoin. OP_CAT essentially enables data concatenation within scripts. This would potentially help power transactions that can integrate multiple conditions, signatures, and data points within a single transaction. This capability could drastically expand the types of transactions that are feasible on the Bitcoin network, from complex multi-signature wallets to on-chain multi-party agreements.

Ultimately, the integration of OP_CAT could significantly drive more innovation on Bitcoin's and enhance scalability and security. Its implementation, however, would involve a ten-line code change and require a soft fork of Bitcoin itself. For this to happen, community consensus would be needed for its activation on Bitcoin, and it is one of the crucial steps outlined in Quantum Cats’ Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) land map. 

The Future of Quantum Cats

It is too early to tell what Quantum Cats could potentially be or even how the Cats will evolve. Nonetheless, Quantum Cats is a symbol for change and will pave the way for more innovative projects and improvements on Bitcoin.

The collection’s popularity speaks to the wider Bitcoin community’s enthusiasm to bring more use cases to the world’s oldest blockchain just as much as it represents their desire for high-end Ordinals. To join this community, Leather users can purchase Quantum Cats on platforms like Magic Eden by simply connecting their wallet. 

After all, holding a Quantum Cat means that users are, in some way, participating in yet another key chapter of Bitcoin’s history.

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