Bitgirls was a Japanese TV show and a blockchain based project, which allowed the viewers to support idols (named Bitgirls) by purchasing their token (not called NFT at that time).
The viewers were also able to vote for their favorite Bitgirls all along episodes dependings on their performance during the show.
One of the goal at that time was to bring non tech and non geek people onto the blockchain, particulary after the Mt. Gox affair which lead to a general mefiance regarding bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.
ICO was managed by Zaif exchange, and NFT have been created on the Counterparty protocol. BTC, XEM and XCP was the 3 possible crypto to buy Bitgirls.
Ressources:
https://web.archive.org/web/20161130102202/https://bitgirls.io/en/
https://news.bitcoin.com/cryptocurrency-tv-show-bitgirls/
https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-rebranding-in-japan-bitgirls-tv-show-to-sugarcoat-mtgox-drama
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1616089.0
When, Where
It was broadcasted on Japanese Television on Tokyo MX TV, from 2016/10/21 and ended after 5 months on air.
You can find all the episodes and presentation of girls on that channel:
At least, have a look to the opening of the show, it’s so funny!
How innovative it was?
As far as I know Bitgirls pionnering a lot of fields:
First NFT with real people / photography
First (and only?) NFT related to a TV show / mass media
First NFT with interactive voting system
First NFT with only women
It’s on the golden era of the history of NFT, when only a few NFT project was live. You know how crypto is moving fast, and this project is from 2016, more than 5 years ago.
What is the supply, circulating and distribution?
There is 4 types of token.
The first one is the torekabu token, used for the ICO. The hard cap is 5 million, 3.5M was for ICO and balance for the team.
The name of the asset is the name of the corresponding bitgirls for example: CHIKARIN for Chika Yuuki
The 3.5M have been distributed to all ICO participant based on the ratio amount of each.
Second one is the BG type. Supply is for each asset is 500. Construction of name of asset is torekabu asset + BG at the end.
With our previous example, it gives CHIKARINBG
At time of show, it was only possible to acquire these tokens against 10000 torekabu tokens.
For example paying 10k CHIKARIN gave 1 CHIKARINBG
So the circulating supply is 3.5M / 10k = 350
Third one is the Christmas Edition.
This is a limited edition, only 5 bitgirls and the famous presenter of the show have been immortalized on the blockchain.
Supply of each card is 1000.
To be honest, nobody can really know the true supply of each token.
There is a lot of parameters that deacrease the real supply:
- Have all torekabu been converted to BG assets
- How many wallets have been lost
- How many people do not want to sell these pieces of history?
If we dig onto the blockchain, we saw that most of the token are still on the Zaif exchange (address is 3DZzgGNxsSK1XyUJcKHLM9PxLTEypPGo8W).
Some people retrieved their token from Zaif (last withdraw was on 2021–12–16), but it doesn’t mean all token on that address are claimable.
For example TSUKASABG the number of holder is 11, with the first holder is ZAIF exchange with 468 / 500. How many are claimable by people who bought the torekabu on first place ? We don’t know, but if you find one in the wild jump you know what to do.
The last one are the two specials cards BITGIRLSI and BITGIRLSII where all the BG was required to exchange them.
These are the rarest ones, probably owne by 2 or 3 early adopters.
How to acquire?
There is couple a way to buy bitgirls, I will list them from the most convenient to the less one:
Opensea
Like all counterparty assets, bitgirls can be stored in an Emblem vault and then can be traded on open sea like a native ERC721 token.
There is two way to store them, on matic chain or on ethereum one:
Dispensers
The OG way to buy counterparty asset is definitly dispensers. With a legacy bitcoin address, you send a amount of bitcorn to a contract, once received, the contract send the card to the sender address.
While that way is very conveniant and very cheap (bitcoin fess are way lower than ethereum), there is some rules that should be kept in mind.
Check if dispenser still open with cards to be delivered
Use high fee to not be front runned
If failed, amount won’t be retrivied automatically.
There is some cards that can be found on dispenser.
Most of the bitgirls market can be founded here:
https://explorer.nft-relics.com/?pa=1&co=17&sb=n&sd=a
Auction House
There is a couple of auction House that can time to time offer Bitgirls to trade:
It’s a really good way to buy some bitgirls, it’s more than a purchase it’s a complete adventure with auctioneer and other buyers. Make sure to set a limit before enter in the ring !
Most of them have premium to cover cost of the house.
WTH Auction House
The Real Goodman NFT Auction
OTC trade
If you find someone you want to trade directly cards with you, you can go directly over the counter.
This is the riskiest way to trade, you can count only on trust between both parties. I won’t recommend it, prefer go throught escrow to arrange the deal.
What is the best card to acquire?
The best thing with bitgirls is that there is some possibility for every wallet.
The torekabu token can be founded for relatively cheap as there is very big issuance.
The Christmas edition cards can be found easily on opensea or dispensers, issuance is relatively low, and lot of them are underpriced considering their historical value.
Lowest issuance cards is the BG edition, but you can still find good price on dispensers.
I would say that the best cards are the most famous girls in Japan, Chika Yuuki, Tsukasa Wachi, Risa Yoshiki, Mai Hinano, Sato Ayaka.
But it also depends on you, which girls do you prefer?
Grail is to collect them all.
Is there some cross chain project ?
Yes there is two cards that capture the history of bitgirls:
BITGIRLPEPE is an official Rarepepe project, a tribute to Bitgirls (reference card is CHIKARIN)
REJECTEDVIX is an offical MemoryChain project, a tribute to Bitgirls christmas edition. (reference card is RISAVIX)
There is also a project on Monaparty (same as counterparty but on monacoin) where Chika Yuuki is the only model.
Is there whitepaper? Is team doxxed ?
This is really 2021 questions, but even at that time (2016) a complete whitepaper was issued:
https://aqua-trix-50.tiiny.site/
The head of the project is Takao Asayama, founder of Zaif exchange, but as far as I know not involved anymore in Bitgirls.
At time of ICO project raise 288 BTC (around 201 k$)
