Luxor Partners With Taylor Swift In Effort To Mint "Epic" NFT On First Sat Of Upcoming Halving Block
Luxor Mining Pool announced a new partnership with Grammy award winning artist Taylor Swift on Monday to mint an "epic" NFT if the pool wins the first block of the upcoming block reward halving in April. The announced plan is sure to cause some "Bad Blood" between the company and some in the Bitcoin community which is increasingly divided over Ordinals.
In a release Luxor detailed their plan to compete for the coveted block, Taylor Swift's involvement, what they plan to do with some of the 312,500,000 sats if they find the block. Should Luxor find the first block of the next epoch, it will work with Swift to design and mint a 1-of-1 "Epic Effort to Save Democracy" NFT on the first satoshi on the block, known as an "epic" sat. The "epic" NFT will be auctioned off at some point in the future with the majority of the proceeds going towards Joe Biden's Presidential campaign. To increase their odds, Luxor will also mint and issue BRC-20 tokens and send them to any miners who pointed their hash at Luxor's pool to help find the block. While most of the profit will be donated to the Biden campaign, 21% of the proceeds will be distributed to the public address of each previously issued BRC-20 token at the time of distribution.
A spokesperson for Taylor Swift told The Bugle the partnership was a slam dunk for everyone involved. It allows Taylor Swift to connect with a new audience of artists and enthusiasts while supporting a good cause. She also expects the plan to generate positive publicity in the growing Bitcoin mining industry. The spokesperson said Swift first learned about the importance of the halving from an ad produced by one of the financial firms recently approved to launch a Bitcoin ETF.
Luxor made headlines last year when it mined the first 4MB block which was a bit of a publicity stunt itself. The infamous block was also a NFT. Luxor believes the campaign and partnership will generate more buzz for its pool. Luxor provides an alternative to miners looking to avoid inscription censoring pools like Ocean, which has received a disproportionate amount of attention in recent weeks. "Obviously miners can point their hash back to another pool after the halving, if they wish, but we're betting that many miners will stick with us permanently." Luxor said in its release.
In response to the Luxor announcement Braiins Pool announced if they win the first block of the epoch they will inscribe an A.I. generated pornographic depiction of Taylor Swift for the "lulz." The Bugle did not reach out to F2Pool for comment, however F2Pool reached out to The Bugle and requested to be on record saying they will continue to censor non OFAC compliant transactions.
