Bargain vs. Blue-Chip: Pizza Ninjas & Quantum Cats Show Resilience as Ordinals Market Dips
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The past quarter has tested the mettle of the fledgling Ordinals market.
While Bitcoin enjoyed an explosive Q1 with new all-time highs fueled by the long-awaited approval of spot ETFs, Q2 saw a broader market correction as BTC’s price declined 15%. The once white-hot Ordinals market has also cooled from its local top in April amid the halving and launch of the Runes protocol, with projects seeing a significant drop in volume and floor price across the board.
Such corrections are fairly commonplace in crypto cycles, and while undoubtedly painful for holders to experience, they offer valuable opportunities to assess projects’ relative strengths and staying power. Although none of the leading Ordinals projects have been immune to the downtrend, some are showing more resilience than others amid tough market conditions—potentially a good indicator of their likelihood to rebound when the pendulum swings back bullish.
Many of the most popular Ordinals projects have taken a beating. At the time of writing, Nodemonkes sit at a 0.177 BTC ($10,686) floor, marking a nearly 71% decline since their early April peak of 0.61. Similarly, Bitcoin Puppets currently trade at a 0.136 BTC ($8,219) floor, down more than 70% from the mid-April peak of 0.46. Ordinals Maxi Business (OMB) has fared measurably better with a 0.22 BTC ($13,295) floor, representing a 55% loss since its early April peak of 0.49 BTC.
However, Quantum Cats and Pizza Ninjas have exhibited statistically significant strength in comparison. Quantum Cats have retained a 0.248 BTC ($15,005) floor price, recording a dip of just 50% of their value from the late April peak of 0.5. Meanwhile, Pizza Ninjas hold a 0.101 BTC ($6,102) floor, marking only a 47% decline since their mid-April peak of 0.19.
Why have these two projects fared better than their contemporaries over the same period? Fully doxxed founders, lower supply sizes, and a higher percentage of unique holders certainly play a role, but they don’t tell the whole story.
For this week’s edition of “Bargain vs. Bluechip,” I will take a closer look at the two Ordinals projects through a cultural and investment lens. As always, this is not financial advice—simply an analysis of the collections and the opportunities they may present!
Bargain: Pizza Ninjas
The Collection: Pizza Ninjas
Floor Price: 0.101 BTC ($6,102)
The Case for Bargain:
Launched by Ninjalerts in January 2024 with a 0.03 BTC mint price, Pizza Ninjas is a collection of 1,500 ninjas inscribed on rare pizza satoshis used in the now-infamous “Bitcoin Pizza” purchase in May 2010. Led by Trevor Owens, the Ninjalerts CEO and Bitcoin Frontier Fund GP who hosts popular X Spaces “The Ordinals Show” and nft now’s “Not Financial Advice,” the collection features artwork created by artist Boozy and mathematically designed by co-founder and color scientist Max Savin for maximum appeal on the social platform.
“Whether you consider Runes a bust or a long-term play with potential, there’s no denying that Pizza Ninjas superserved its community ahead of the launch.”
Buoyed by Owens’ platform and advocacy, Pizza Ninjas enjoyed a breakthrough moment around the Runes protocol’s release. Whether you consider Runes a bust or a long-term play with potential, there’s no denying that Pizza Ninjas superserved its community ahead of the launch. The Ninjas Discord featured a comprehensive survival guide to setting up a Bitcoin node and mastering the command terminal, 24/7 help desks with round-the-clock community support, and multiple daily live streams dishing out alpha. On launch night, Owens hunkered down for a marathon live-streamed war room, creating spreadsheets for the community and offering real-time market insights.
These efforts didn’t go unnoticed, and the Ninjas community welcomed many new holders eager to gain an edge in the nascent Runes market as the project’s floor quadrupled in the span of 10 days. While the floor price predictably dipped following the launch, it has held up remarkably well amid the greater downturn and remains more than double its level before the Runes hype — indicating that some holders may have come for the Runes alpha but stayed for the strong community.
While many Ordinals projects operate predominately online, Pizza Ninjas has been intentionally active in IRL community-building. During NFT NYC, Pizza Ninjas organized a two-day bus tour of some of the city’s best pizzerias for holders, drawing notable community members like the OrdinalsBot team, Bitgod, and BRC-20 founder Domo. The project also sponsored both Ordinals Asia in Hong Kong and Ordinals Lisbon at NFC Summit, bringing the community together with on-site activations and pizza parties. In Hong Kong, they even chartered a yacht trip for holders featuring a sprawling pizza spread and custom merch complete with orange shirts and swimsuits.
In March, Pizza Ninja #1 sold for 2.23 BTC ($139,700) at Sotheby’s. The project recently announced a forthcoming airdrop for an on-chain Tamagotchi-style game called Pizza Pets, sparking a price rise while indicating that more surprises are coming. As the Ordinals market turns around, Pizza Ninjas is poised to benefit from its low supply size (only 4.1% are currently listed), ability to execute, and a tight-knit community that wants to see it win.
Blue-Chip: Quantum Cats
The Collection: Quantum Cats
Floor Price: 0.248 BTC ($15,005)
The Case for Blue-Chip:
Debuted by the Taproot Wizards team in January 2024 with a 0.1 BTC mint price, Quantum Cats is a collection of 3,333 cats designed by artist FAR and inscribed on Bitcoin using Ordinals. Aiming to reintegrate the OP_CAT functionality into Bitcoin’s codebase — a scripting function removed early in Bitcoin’s development due to concerns about potential security risks — Quantum Cats are part of a broader campaign to engage the community in understanding and improving Bitcoin’s technical capabilities.
To understand the appeal of Quantum Cats, it’s important to recognize where Taproot Wizards fits into the pantheon of Ordinals lore. Founded by Udi Wertheimer and Eric Wall, Taproot Wizards is a collection of 2,121 wizard-themed Ordinals based on a viral 2013 Reddit meme. On Feb. 1, Wertheimer inscribed the inaugural wizard with the largest block and transaction to date on Bitcoin. The record 4 MB block size sparked a contentious debate about Ordinals, with aggrieved “laser eye” maximalists arguing that inscribers were clogging the network with wasteful use of limited block space.
Wertheimer and Wall doubled down on the insurgent ethos—appearing onstage at the Bitcoin Conference in full wizard garb and infuriating their detractors—and Taproot Wizards quickly became one of the most highly coveted Ordinals projects. Rather than launch the project immediately, the team recognized that scarcity was on their side and created a “Wizard School” that allowed users to compete in quests to win a wizard. For example, a popular quest took over the timeline by prompting aspiring holders to don wizard costumes and film themselves taking fully-clothed showers.
“Speculation about whether Quantum Cat holders would be in the running for Taproot Wizards turned out to be well-founded.”
With its launch earlier this year, Quantum Cats became the first Taproot Wizards asset that most could own—selling out with $13 million in primary sales and skyrocketing to the upper echelon of Ordinals projects. Speculation about whether Quantum Cat holders would be in the running for Taproot Wizards turned out to be well-founded.
As the project features artwork that can evolve over time, the team announced the randomized reveal of a Golden Cape trait in March that would entitle the owner to redeem their cat for a Taproot Wizard. The Quantum Cats floor rose to new all-time highs in response, and the first Golden Cape Quantum Cat sold for 1.8 BTC ($127,000) at Sotheby’s. After hinting that a “select few” Golden Capes would be revealed for random holders, the second Golden Cape Cat was revealed later that month. The unfortunate owner had listed the cat for 0.49 BTC, and it was quickly sniped in the mempool and listed for 1.9 BTC—underscoring the team’s clever dynamic to incentivize holding.
Taproot Wizards and Quantum Cats have also embraced IRL with respective events at NFT NYC and a live “wizard shower” featuring Wertheimer and Wall at the Ordinals Asia afterparty. In April, the project announced a permissionless Bitcoin bridge called CatVM, offering scaling without liquidity requirements and decentralized Ordinals and Runes trading using OP_CAT. While the announcement resembled an unhinged children’s book version of “The Alchemist,” it signaled that the team is serious about building on Bitcoin.
In a recent nft now X Space, Wertheimer shared that the announcement did not meet with much backlash from the Bitcoin maximalist community, indicating a growing acceptance of the new builder ecosystem. Between the Quantum Cats mint and Taproot Wizards’ $7.5 million fundraise last November, the project is well-capitalized to continue pursuing its ambitious agenda irrespective of market conditions. With undeniable momentum and a mastery of memetics, it’s a tough team to bet against.
Bottomline
While Ordinals holders may be hurting now, the ecosystem’s active builder community and rapidly developing infrastructure portend better days ahead. For those looking to buy the blood, the projects that have held their value best during the market downturn appear well-positioned to be winners when bullish sentiment prevails.
Pizza Ninjas have demonstrated an admirable capability to create value for holders through good, old-fashioned hard work and have cemented a strong community through in-person events. With a relatively low supply size, highly convicted holders, and a consistent platform to engage the Ordinals community on X Spaces, it would not be surprising to see prices jump quickly as demand increases.
Meanwhile, the Taproot Wizards team understands the FOMO-driven dynamics of the Ordinals attention economy better than anyone. So long as Quantum Cats have the wizard ace up their sleeve, they will likely be able to generate market-moving hype as they please.
Editor’s note: At the time of publication, the author holds one Quantum Cat and one Pizza Ninja.
