As the halving approaches, speculators eagerly anticipate the launch of Runes. Drawing significant mindshare on CT, there’s much confusion and misinformation surrounding this new token standard. Even more so exacerbated by a myriad of unaffiliated protocols implementing “Rune” in their name and token.
So, let’s shed some light on this.
What are Runes?
Casey Rodarmor, the developer behind Ordinal Theory, is building yet another novel innovation – a fungible token standard for Bitcoin called the Runes Protocol. As a meta protocol, the Runes protocol is not a token itself – but, quoting Casey on his podcast “a venue for people to create shitcoins” on Bitcoin.
Tokens created using this token standard are called Runes. Unlike BRC-20s, Runes are a fungible token standard meaning each Rune is interchangeable. The best analogy here are ERC-20 tokens on Ethereum. The Runes token standard is similar yet simpler and created for the Bitcoin Network.
High Level Overview
- Runes Protocol along with Runes launch at the halving block, ~ April 19
- Runes balances are stored in Bitcoin UTXOs
The Runes protocol expands UTXOs to store both Bitcoin and Rune balances adopting Bitcoin’s security framework. As a result, users can create and trade Runes making regular Bitcoin transactions.
- Runes 0-9 are hardcoded to guarantee fair launches
An important nuance. Numerous protocols are racing to be amongst the first to launch their own Rune token using creative gamification models and promising airdrops. Be cautious of disingenuous marketing from projects claiming to be the fi
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