Although it was the most anticipated halving (at least according to Google search history), it was the launch of renowned Bitcoin developer Casey Rodamore's latest creation — Bitcoin Runes — that attracted attention even among longtime blockchain developers who are against digital tokens on the Bitcoin network. .
Rodamor is known as the developer of Ordinals, a protocol that allows data to be “written” into the smallest units of Bitcoin (Satoshi) to create high-value assets on the Bitcoin network.. Ordinals is largely considered to be the mastermind behind the revamped Bitcoin developer ecosystem.
Runes are similar to ordinals in that they allow people to «engrave» and mint tokens on the blockchain. The main difference is that ordinals are “non-fungible” (meaning one of a kind), while runes will function more like the meme coins that have taken crypto markets by storm lately.
Runes' first project was Rodamore's own project UNCOMMON•GOODS, which was announced long before the halving, like many other projects seeking to capture those much-coveted Satoshis.
However, it is impossible to know in advance what other projects will be able to find space on these scarce satoshis.. There are already literally hundreds of Runes projects currently being minted and looking for potential buyers.
Roughly nine blocks after the halving, Runes miners have already paid 78.6 BTC in fees (~$4.95 million) to buy the rarest of the rare. This suggests that, like Ordinals, the Runes protocol could be a boon to Bitcoin's growing fee economy.
What makes a Runes project potentially viable is some kind of subjective criterion: an early project included in the list, such as DOG•GO•TO•THE•MOON, having the honor of being the «Number 3 Rune» is one indicator. But buyers also evaluate projects based on the “quality” of their ticker symbol.
According to runebtc, a number of Runes projects had already begun minting before the halving occurred, including DOG•DOG•DOG•DOG•DOG, MEME•ECONOMICS, SHORT•THE•WORLD, and PEPE•WIT•HONKERS, among dozens of others.
Before the halving block was mined, users and speculators, potential buyers in the X Space of the famous ordinal collector Leonidas, were discussing which runes to mint and trading ticker names.
Among the names excluded were Taproot Wizards, the Ordinals project co-created by Bitcoin OG influencers Eric Wall and Udi Wertheimer, and the Satoshi Nakamoto project named after the creator of Bitcoin, which at the time of publication had more than 5,000 holders and had minted approximately 19,000 tokens .
It is difficult to judge which projects will actually prove to be of long-term value.
“Yeah, I don't see any good memes, I mean I'm just trying to figure it out,” one trader said. “To be honest, I haven’t minted anything yet.”
“I'm currently trying to understand space in general,” someone else replied. — These designs are similar to early runes. Do you guys think they will actually be the most valuable?”
“I guess it depends on what happens to them,” someone replied.
Another aspect to consider is how many tokens have been «pre-mined» or held in reserve for the project's creators to later release to the market. Even before the halving, Leonidas shared guidelines suggesting that projects that premine more than 10% of tokens should be “greedy.”
“I think preminers will win,” said one trader. “Because it’s pretty hard to come up with a good meme with a 13-character limit,” he said.
By thirteen characters he is referring to the hard-coded naming system that Rodamore added to Runes to try to prevent «ticker squatters».
Over time, rune tickers will be able to be placed with shorter names. For example, within three years, rune projects with three-letter tickers may appear.
Although it's unclear how well this strategy will work. According to data source Ordiscan, one forward-thinking developer has already locked down a number of tickers, including ZZZZ (which will be the «first four-letter rune» to be minted in two years), ZZ and Z (the first two-letter and single-letter runes — to be minted in about three years) and A (last single rune, will be minted in four years).
In other words, when it comes to something so new, it's hard to know what to value.
«Since everyone is trying to figure out what the hell is going on, I want to take a moment and say it's great to be here with all of you,» Leonidas told his audience. — Essentially, this is the beginning of a new protocol, which started about 30 minutes ago. So let's see what happens. I think it will be very chaotic.»