Arthur Hayes Wants Bitcoiners to Show Off Their Wealth With New Ordinals Collection

Renowned crypto investor and co-founder of the BitMEX exchnage Arthur Hayes today opened the white list for his first Ordinals non-fungible token (NFT) collection, Airheads.

The Airheads whitelist will last four to six weeks. The top 10,000 spots on a leaderboard will be able to mint an Airhead and accrue points depending on how many Ordinals and Bitcoin the user holds.

What’s unique about Airheads is that within the Oyl Wallet, the only Ordinals-focused investment in Hayes’ family office Maelstrom Fund’s portfolio, the Airhead will balloon to varying sizes depending on how much Bitcoin is in the wallet minting the piece.

Hayes uses the e concept of “fat positive,” a movement aiming to end the social stigma associated with being overweight, but instead encourage holders to “embrace (their) financial success without shame.”

The motivation for Hayes is to go above and beyond what has already been done on Ordinals.

“I want to do something different for Bitcoin,” Hayes told The Defiant. “I’m bored of seeing the same NFTs, and pfps, so I asked my team to find something really unique in the realm of artwork.”

He’s unequivocally bullish on Bitcoin Ordinals, he said, and his ultimate goal is to bring as much culture as he can onto Bitcoin. Hayes considers it the only true blockchain suited for longevity in storing artistic creations.

“The rest are just centralized databases, whereas Bitcoin is ready to outlast the test of time,” Hayes said in an interview.

Airhead Derivatives

Much like the inflating Airheads, Hayes wants to see this collection derive into a plethora of other collections.

“I want to see derivatives of Airheads,” he said. “This is the dominant art form, and I want it to expand as much as possible across Bitcoin.”

Even though Hayes acknowledges that traditional artwork will be slow to find its way onchain–”collectors that buy works from French artist Paul Gaugian still think this is a fad”–what’s exciting and he hopes to spur is for any artist to reap monetary value by inscribing on Bitcoin.

Until Ordinals, he explained, artists stood at the behest of guardians that only allowed what they deemed artistic. Now, anybody can create assets and art on Bitcoin.

Ordinals Growth

Since launching in early 2023, Ordinals have been a force to be reckoned with.

Created by Bitcoin developer Casey Rodarmor, these allow for arbitrary non-financial data to be inscribed onto Bitcoin through the smallest denomination of a BTC, dubbed a “satoshi.” They are similar to Ethereum’s NFTs, and have prompted an entire ecosystem of artists, activists, and enthusiasts to flourish on the blockchain once dubbed a pet rock.

According to Dune, inscriptions go through waves of popularity, but they died down nearly entirely in late April, seemingly due to the Bitcoin halving on April 19. However, activity picked up again in May, with Ordinals jolting back to life, averaging 30,000 inscriptions per day, down from more than 150,000 pre-halving.

That said, sentiment surrounding Ordinals remains high as ever. At the Bitcoin2024 conference in Nashville during the end of July, Ordinals was touted as one of the most important sectors in the industry, with “Bitcoin Season II” dominating hallway conversations. Hayes wants to tap into the momentum.