Building Bitcoin Culture with Tosyo of BitcoinWhales

The enthusiasm for Ordinals within the Bitcoin community remains strong and continues to grow even a year after the first Ordinal NFTs were minted. 

As the Ordinals ecosystem continues to evolve, we’re taking time to spotlight the artists and creators who have been instrumental for its expansion over the last year. 

Tosyo, co-creator of BitcoinWhales, is one of the artists helping share Ordinals with the world. BitcoinWhales began as a project aimed at capturing and spreading Bitcoin’s creative culture. The collection has grown into a project focused on building and maintaining a welcoming community for creators in the wider Bitcoin world, while partnering with initiatives across the globe to help preserve local art and promote artists. 

Building a Global Community with Bitcoin Ordinals

Leather: How did you begin your creative journey?

Tosyo: My mother and sister actually did fine art. I expressed art in a different form, more specifically through photography and filmmaking. I did have some mentors and I was fortunate enough to work for a newspaper company where I was initially training to be a fashion photographer. I was always fond of capturing the moment, so to speak, ever since I was young, and that's how I eventually found out that I loved art.

Leather: What inspired the creation of BitcoinWhales?

Tosyo: So I had this idea where I wanted to build a safe haven for a community that everyone would actually benefit from. I was applying to join a Bitcoin startup accelerator, but I decided not to apply and just focus on building culture. Ordinals made Bitcoin fun again, and culture plays a huge role when it comes to retention or keeping individuals engaged with the Bitcoin ecosystem. 

BitcoinWhales was the perfect name for this project because often we see Bitcoin ‘Whales’ as big players in the space, or a person who has a lot of bitcoin. But with Ordinals, everyone can be part of a community regardless if they're actually a Whale or not. 

Leather: Why did you choose Ordinals?

Tosyo: When I discovered Ordinals and started to learn everything about it, it definitely made sense to start a community in Bitcoin because Bitcoin is where scarcity and immutability exists, and it exists within Ordinals. So I figured I wanted to make a long-lasting community that works well and whose digital collectibles or assets can be passed down from generation to generation, and it would be on Bitcoin because the art is inscribed on-chain.

Leather: You’ve recently started a project, Culture Pods, aimed at preserving and promoting local art in different communities around the world. How did that come about, and what will it look like?

Tosyo: I got to connect with an amazing individual and we share the same vision. They’re based in Singapore while my home country is the Philippines. We wanted to promote mass adoption in a different lens. Our aim here is to embrace different cultures and preserve their cultural heritage one block at a time. 

What I hope in the future is for different nations or cultures to embrace Culture Pods, because what our partnership entails with Bali is that they're utilizing our IP to integrate their cultural art with BitcoinWhales. It also helps create exposure for local artists. This may be the first time these artists are discovering Bitcoin Ordinals, so one of the things that I hope is that we have a global network in the future. 

Leather: What would you say to artists who are curious about joining the Bitcoin community and creating Ordinals?

Tosyo: There's no perfect time, but they are welcome to join BitcoinWhales at any moment because we’re still in our early stages. There's also a lot of time for creators to get in on Ordinals because that broader ecosystem is still in its early stages as well. 

I think Ordinals is the best way to get into Bitcoin. It allows people to explore the Bitcoin community in an easy, frictionless way.

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