Bitcoin is front and center again, and orange coin lovers everywhere have plenty to be excited about: new all-time high prices, the upcoming halving, rising demand for Ordinals—and soon, something totally new called Runes.
And while Runes won’t hit Bitcoin until the halving—currently set for April 19 as of this writing—when the supply of newly minted BTC is once again cut in half by slashing miner rewards, the project is already getting a lot of hype and attention. Here’s what you need to know.
What are Runes?
Runes is a new protocol from the mind behind Ordinals, Casey Rodarmor. With Ordinals, the Bitcoin developer made it possible to create NFT-like “inscriptions” on the Bitcoin network—and this, in turn, made it possible to trade jpegs for magic internet money right on the grandaddy chain.
Rodarmor, in an interview with TechCrunch, described his Ordinals “theory” as a “lens that you can view the Bitcoin blockchain through, and when you view it through that lens, these trackable satoshis pop into view like Pokémon in the tall grass.” So, in this sense, Runes similarly represent a new lens through which to view Bitcoin—but this time, with shitcoins.
Bitcoin Ordinals Creator Announces New Fungible Token Protocol 'Runes'
A new Bitcoin fungible token protocol is the talk of the town. Casey Rodarmor, the creator of Bitcoin Ordinals protocol, rolled out a new protocol called “Runes” dedicated to fungible tokens yesterday. The Ordinals protocol has provided a platform for issuing meme tokens and NFT-like assets on the Bitcoin blockchain through the BRC-20 standard. Its current design, however, tends to clog the network and increase transfer fees. Rodarmor said that Ordinals have “undesirable consequences of Unspent...
The Runes protocol picks up where BRC-20s left off. BRC-20 is a fungible token standard, which itself makes use of the Ordinals protocol and was developed by the pseudonymous dev domo. Runes is an attempt to make the process of creating fungible tokens on Bitcoin more efficient.
How do Runes work?
Whereas Ordinals or inscriptions are non-fungible tokens—unique identifiers meant to house data like collectibles, art, or trading cards—BRC-20s and Runes are fungible tokens. Fungible simply means they’re interchangeable, like the dollar bills you no longer have in your wallet because all money is digital now anyway.
Bitcoin Developers Unite to Draft Guidelines for BRC-20 Tokens
The immense popularity of Bitcoin Ordinals and new meme coins minted on the world’s top blockchain has brought a coalition of Bitcoin developers together to cooperatively formalize the underlying BRC-20 fungible token standard. The coalition—the newly formed Layer 1 Foundation—announced its new governance body on Monday, focused on ensuring trust and transparency around the protocol and calling it crucial for future growth. “We invited all of the biggest BRC-20 indexers to become partners… and t...
Like BRC-20s, Runes will use Bitcoin and pay fees in Bitcoin to create new tokens. The key difference between Runes and BRC-20s is that Runes, like Bitcoin itself, uses an Unspent Transaction Output (UTXO) model, as opposed to an account model—the same model used by some layer-1 chains such as Ethereum.
Many Bitcoiners believe the UTXO model to be superior, and that using the account model is one of the reasons Ethereum falls short. Rodarmor himself believes the UTXO model to be superior because, among other reasons, other token standards tend to rely on off-chain data, whereas Runes will be completely on-chain.
7 Bitcoin Ordinals and Runes Projects You Should Know Ahead of the Halving
It’s a wild time for Bitcoin. The leading cryptocurrency’s price surged higher and higher in March to break its 2021 peak price, spot Bitcoin ETFs are spurring wider interest in the coin, and this month’s Bitcoin halving and Runes token protocol are driving significant excitement. Given all of that, it’s no surprise that Bitcoin Ordinals are white hot lately, with the NFT-like assets taking over the market and shaking up the battle between marketplaces as well. If you’ve been sitting on the side...
With Runes, the issuer creates a token and sets a limit for how many someone can mint in a transaction. While Ordinals are "inscribed," Runes are "etched" according to a recent protocol breakdown shared by Rodarmor. The etcher can optionally "premine" a certain allocation of the token for themselves ahead of the public mint.
When does the Runes protocol launch on Bitcoin?
Rodarmor has timed the launch of Runes to the Bitcoin halving. This means that both the Runes protocol and the various “runes” tokens being built on the protocol will go live when Bitcoin reaches a block height of 840,000. This was expected to happen on April 20, but due to growing network activity, now it will take place late Friday, April 19. (That's tonight!)
Why the Bitcoin Halving Is Sooner Than You Think
Sky-high Bitcoin ETF flows and several price rallies mean that the next Bitcoin halving is now projected to take place on April 15—not the meme-friendly 4/20 that it once was. That's bad news for meme fans who liked the idea of celebrating the halving and their affinity for weed on the same day. But it's also good news and a telling indication of trader sentiment. Just a month ago—on Valentine's Day, no less—Decrypt wrote about the very meme-friendly hypothetical situation that Bitcoin might rea...
The “halving” refers to an event that’s hard-coded into the Bitcoin protocol and occurs roughly every four years. It’s meant to keep Bitcoin’s inflation rate in check, and historically, this event has been viewed as a bullish indicator and often brings a lot of eyes to Bitcoin. After all, a shrinking supply and growing demand is how “number go up.”
And while Runes are still hours away, several projects have already been building around Runes for months in anticipation.
How to Mint Runes at the Bitcoin Halving Without Getting Rekt
Merry Bitcoin Halving Eve! Hoping to unwrap a Rune? The same developer that brought you Bitcoin Ordinals will soon debut a new protocol, called Runes, which plans to rival the BRC-20 token standard. Since its announcement, the project seen huge hype with tons of projects gearing up for the Runes launch—which aligns with the Bitcoin halving. Most notably, meme coin PUPS skyrocketed ahead of its launch. But the rise didn’t come without some controversy. There have been spats over the project’s cla...
What projects are building on Runes?
Ever since Rodarmor first announced the plan for the Runes protocol back in September, there’s been a rush of activity in the Ordinals scene to prepare.
The first and arguably most prominent project to start making noise is RSIC. RSIC is a collection of 21,000 Ordinals that plans to launch a token called RUNE—which is like launching an ERC-20 token called ERC-20, and is sure to cause some confusion. The RSIC Ordinals were airdropped to wallets that owned certain other Ordinals inscriptions, such as Ordinal Maxi Biz.
Someone Airdropped 21K Ordinals to Bitcoin Users as Part of Mysterious Game
Sparking the latest mystery surrounding Bitcoin Ordinals, someone airdropped 21,000 digital inscriptions as a part of an apparent game promotion on Sunday. “A technological arms race has begun—21,000 cutting-edge RSICs, manufactured in our factory, are being sent from our distribution centers to the Ordinals community,” a message inscribed in inscription 56,754,110 reads. “The RSICs are designed for the sole purpose of securing a bag of runes. These runes will be etched in our foundry after the...
RSIC is a play on the term ASIC, a type of Bitcoin miner. Users who own the RSIC Ordinals inscription can use it to start “mining” their upcoming token. Other notable projects have since followed in RSIC’s footsteps.
Runestone is an Ordinals project created by the pseudonymous NFT and Ordinals connoisseur Leonidas. The project consists of 112,383 Runestone Ordinals that have been airdropped to every Ordinals wallet that held at least three inscriptions prior to the cutoff date of January 20, 2024—the one-year anniversary of the Ordinals protocol launch.
Check Your Wallets: Bitcoin Ordinals Runestones Are Being Airdropped
It’s raining Runestone. The highly anticipated Runestones airdrop took place late Thursday, sending Ordinal inscriptions to over 112,000 Bitcoin wallets. “Something is happening!” NFT historian and Runestone spokesperson Leonidas said on Twitter. “112,383 Runestones are approaching Earth’s atmosphere. Brace yourselves for impact.” According to the Inscription marketplace Ordi, collectors hoping to receive a Runestone in the airdrop must go to its Bitcoin Ordinals platform and enter their wallet...
That airdrop took place last month, and Leonidas previously told Decrypt that each Runestone will “convert” into a Runes token once the protocol is live. Since then, he's revealed plans for a dog-themed Rune meme coin that will be airdropped to all Runestone holders, with potentially two additional token airdrops to follow.
Node Apes is another pre-Runes project, which combines a NodeMonkes-inspired profile picture (PFP) with a “Runic Miner” Ordinal (sold separately, some assembly required). Together, the Node Ape and runic miner Ordinal promise to “mine” runes if held in the same wallet. RuneX is a project that claims to be building a decentralized exchange for Runes on Bitcoin, and also has its own Ordinals collection.
Bitcoin Pups Meme Coin Up 1,000% Ahead of Runes Launch
Bitcoin meme coin Pups is up 1,056% for the week, days before the Bitcoin halving and the concurrent launch of the Runes protocol. Pups began the week at $22.50 before surging 44% on Tuesday. With a max supply of 7.7 million, Pups has passed $365 million in market capitalization. While Pups (PUPS) is up over 1,000% and trading at $41.89, according to CoinGecko, the Ordinals inscription project that launched a year ago is up 119,813.7% since the beginning of the year. Pups is the first memecoin...
There's also been substantial demand around the PUPS token, which is minted on BRC-20 but will "migrate" to Runes after the protocol is launched via a burn-and-mint process. The price of PUPS shot up by more than 1,600% in the weeks leading up to the launch, suggesting ample demand for the Bitcoin Puppets-inspired token.
Additionally, the popular Bitcoin wallet Xverse announced earlier this month that it has added testnet support for Runes, with plans to support the fungible token standard on mainnet as soon as it goes live. And leading NFT marketplace Magic Eden, which has benefitted greatly from its early adoption of Ordinals, said that it will support Runes as well.
Bitcoin Runes Are Coming—And Xverse Wallet Is Getting Ready
BRC-20 tokens have been the talk of the Bitcoin space over the last year, as the Ordinals protocol that let users inscribe NFT-like assets on the chain could also be used to launch fungible tokens. But a new Bitcoin fungible token standard called Runes is on the horizon, and leading wallet Xverse is gearing up to support it. The Runes protocol, developed by Ordinals protocol creator Casey Rodarmor, is designed to provide a more efficient way to mint and transact fungible tokens deployed on Bitco...
There are many, many other projects currently in the Ordinals space doing something or other with Runes, but there’s one important thing to remember: There is Runes, the protocol, and then there are “runes”—the tokens built on the protocol that anyone with the know-how can create.
What’s the point of Runes?
Rodarmor is refreshingly candid about his reasons for launching Runes. In a recent conversation on his “Hell Money Podcast” on YouTube, the developer made his intentions very clear: “If Runes are successful, they’ll drain liquidity, technology, and attention away from other cryptocurrencies, and bring it back to Bitcoin,” he said.
Bitcoin Runes Coming to Magic Eden After Ordinals Bet Pays Off
Cross-chain NFT marketplace Magic Eden, which recently jumped to the top of the pack amid growing interest in Bitcoin Ordinals, announced Friday that it plans to support the upcoming Runes fungible token standard on Bitcoin. “Ordinals, Rewards, Runes. The Future of BTC is on Magic Eden,” the marketplace tweeted along with a teaser video. The Rune protocol is set to launch on Bitcoin’s mainnet following the halving, which is expected to take place on April 20. The halving is the quadrennial event...
“The moment you realize this is a gambling and entertainment industry, everything makes sense and everybody can approach it in a more honest way,” he added.
Runes, as far as its creator is concerned, isn’t meant for anything more than to create speculative assets, plain and simple. There’s no lofty talk of facilitating teams with runways or funding developers for projects building “the future of finance.” Just fair token launches that allow people to get into a speculative asset while minimizing the risk of being rugged.
Bitcoin Is in Price Discovery—How Much Higher Will It Go?
Bitcoin to the moon? Some crypto data experts certainly think so. The price of Bitcoin is currently at $72,880, data from CoinGecko shows. Earlier on Wednesday, it hit another new all-time high price of over $73,600 per coin, continuing a recent string of upward surges. The new heights are down to the continued success of the spot BTC exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which are receiving record inflows amid rising demand from traditional investors. Bitcoin is said to be in price discovery mode righ...
Of course, what other developers do with the Runes protocol is out of Rodarmor’s hands once it’s in the wild.
“I'm not creating a shitcoin,” Rodarmor said during the interview. “I'm creating a venue for people to create shitcoins, which is possibly worse and more dangerous. We’ll see.”
watch this spacehttps://t.co/hkldSX8C5Y
— Casey (@rodarmor) April 19, 2024
But Rodarmor does appear to be prepping something. On April 18, ahead of the protocol launch, he tweeted that he "might etch a rune tomorrow" and pointed people towards an Ordinals inscription to "watch this space." Will it serve as the launchpad for one of the first Runes drops?
Edited by Guillermo Jimenez and Andrew Hayward
Editor's note: This story was originally posted on March 15, 2024 and last updated with new details on April 19.
