Memecoins
Are Bitcoin runes back? The surge in Meme coins pushes the market capitalization above $2 billion
For the first time ever, the collective market capitalization of tokens on the Bitcoin-based Rune protocol eclipsed $2 billion, further upending the narrative that the new ecosystem for meme coins built on the Bitcoin network is dead on arrival.
At the time of writing, tokens on Runes hold a collective value of $2.06 billion, according to data analytics platform Bitcoin GeniiData. Just last week, that figure topped $1 billion for the first time.
The increase in value appears to be largely attributable to one Rune token in particular, DOG•GO•TO•THE•MOON (also known as DOG). The DOG has increased over 90% in the last week, at a price that still remains a fraction of a cent. Its market capitalization now stands at $797 million, making it the ninth most valuable meme coin across all blockchains, according to CoinGecko.
Runes’ recent increase in value appears to be something of a blessing for Runes creator Casey Rordamor, who previously launched the title NFT-style Bitcoin ordinals registration protocol last year.
Ahead of Runes’ debut alongside the Bitcoin halving on April 19, Rordamor tweeted— jokingly, we assume — that he would commit ritual suicide if Runes didn’t reach a $1 billion market cap within a month of launch.
It would appear that the Bitcoin developer got his wish, just barely. According to GeniiData, Runes surpassed the total market cap of $1 billion just one day before Rordamor’s self-imposed deadline. Since then, the protocol has grown at a remarkable rate, more than doubling its value in a matter of days.
The last few days have brought a particularly pronounced increase in Runes activity, with daily transaction volume on the protocol approaching $20 million on both Wednesday and Thursday for the first time since Runes’ launch week in April.
The surge comes just as it has for many in the industry deleted Runes as a failuregiven the sky-high expectations associated with the protocol’s seductive proposal to simplify how meme coins, a red-hot asset category, can be created on the world’s dominant cryptocurrency.
Prior to Runes’ apparent return in the past two weeks, transaction volume for the protocol had plummeted by more than 90% after a short-lived success debut.
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