The NFT 'Genesis Cat' sold for a high price of $250,000. What kind of cat is a Quantum Cat?

TD; LR

Recently, the NFT market has been sluggish, with the value of most on-chain NFTs close to zero, but at this time, the Ordinals NFT “Genesis Cat” stood out with an astonishing transaction price. What exactly is the appeal of this collection? Can it open up the general trend of Ordinals NFTs?

What are Genesis Cats and Quantum Cats

On January 23, the famous auction house Sotheby’s announced that the special edition of the Bitcoin Ordinals NFT series project ‘Quantum Cat’ - ‘Genesis Cat’ was auctioned off for over $250,000.

“Genesis Cat” was created by digital artist FAR and received more than 50 bids, finally selling for 6.31 BTC, approximately 254,000 USD.
Quantum Cats is a Bitcoin NFT series issued by the Taproot Wizards team.

It appears that ‘Genesis Cat’ is an image composed of 3333 cat-shaped Bitcoin NFTs, which is closely related to the casting cost, quantity, technical source, and narrative of the entire ‘Quantum Cat’ series.

Image source: sothebys com

Quantum Cat describes itself as an ‘evolving inion’. Because each ‘Quantum Cat’ will continue to change over time, this change is uncertain, according to Taproot Wizards, they will undergo uncertain changes with the development of the ‘storyline’.

This does sound very interesting, with some overlapping meaning with the famous concept of ‘Schrodinger’s cat’. Before opening the box, the cat is in a superposition state of ‘all possible outcomes’, which is exactly the classical theory of quantum mechanics. It can be said that after discovering this, the name ‘quantum cat’ is a very clever concept, not just a meme that repeats some keywords.

Whether as an inion asset or as a Bitcoin NFT, it is not a new existence, but Quantum Cat undoubtedly wins applause with its special ‘evolution inion’ posture, bringing a special narrative to the crypto world.

But how is this ‘dynamism’ presented? According to our inherent understanding, once an inion asset is engraved, it cannot be changed, and even the ‘immutability’ is part of the inion narrative. Moreover, the Bitcoin mainnet does not support smart contracts, so how can this ‘uncertain change’ be achieved?

The “dynamic change” of the quantum cat - recursive inion

According to the core members of Taproot Wizard, several techniques were used to achieve the dynamic changes of Quantum Cat: recursive inion, pre-signed transactions, symmetric encryption, and client load management.

The core of Quantum Cat’s final effect is the application of recursive inions. Simply put, recursive inions allow inions to refer to each other and obtain content, allowing the image to change by referencing other inions on the chain. Therefore, ‘dynamic change’ refers to the real-time invocation of content and rendering results.

Image source: Twitter

In addition, symmetric encryption, client-side load balancing, and other technologies are for the security and confidentiality of data, preventing leaks, and improving the browsing experience, i.e. user friendliness.

Quantum Cat’s Narrative Meme - The Resurgence of Ancient Code?

The appearance of Quantum Cats is related to recent exploration of Bitcoin technology, which is related to a recall of the ‘ancient Bitcoin code’ - ‘OP_CAT’. This is an opcode removed from the Bitcoin language by Nakamoto, and some Bitcoin development libraries want to revive this opcode.

OP_CAT allows string concatenation, combining two elements into one. However, considering the stability and scalability of the network and to avoid Bitcoin node crashes, this code was eventually removed in 2010.

However, over time, the stack bloat issue that OP_CAT could cause is no longer a barrier, and now the Bitcoin eco actually needs more advanced or complex smart contracts or protocols. And some Bitcoin forks, such as Bitcoin Cash ( Bitcoin Cash) and sidechain Liquid Network, have re-enabled OP_CAT, confirming its availability.

Therefore, Bitcoin core developers wanted to re-enable its functionality, so they released a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal named ‘OP_CAT’, in which they defined a new tap opcode that allows concatenating two values on the stack. This inspiration comes from old code that has been removed. Through a 13-line code soft fork, it injects momentum into Bitcoin’s smart contracts.

Quantum Cats applies this essence of ‘continuous stacking, changing, updating’ narrative, which is associated with itself, not just inions, but also variable inions; essentially, it is the code for calling and generating images, but it also encompasses the connection to the Bitcoin eco and technological advancement.

The casting of Quantum Cats has cost a great deal, with the engraving of 3333 cats costing over $60,000 and using 10M of encrypted on-chain data. However, it is clear that the community has quickly recognized the symbol and value represented by Quantum Cats.

Summary

According to a report by Galaxy Research and Mining, the market value of the inion market created by Ordinals in 2025 is expected to reach 500 million US dollars. Although the recent popularity of the inion market is not as high as the peak in October to December, we can see various technological thinking and innovation derived from inions instead.

Focusing on and layouting high-quality projects has become more valuable on the basis that the inions can really promote smart contracts or ecological construction. By following Gate.io, you can participate in new narratives in the inion market, obtain the latest information, and layout high-quality targets in advance.

The transaction price of the Genesis Cat will bring more discussions on the Quantum Cat NFT series and Bitcoin NFT into the community; it is reported that the wider auction of this series is scheduled for January 29th.