Runes is making Bitcoin fun and accessible again

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Bitcoin is no longer boring or out of reach for retail; It’s fun and exciting and ready to usher in a new era of innovation. For years, Bitcoin was considered a store of value – a means of preserving capital. This meant using the Bitcoin blockchain to purchase Bitcoin and then transfer it to cold storage, completely forgetting about the largest network in the world.

As a result, while Ethereum, Solana and other blockchains have been buzzing with activity, raking in billions of dollars in fees, the Bitcoin blockchain has remained relatively inactive, with little fun, activity, fees or innovation – except for rising prices. . And as a trillion-dollar asset class, most retail can’t even think about getting into BTC.

But now the tide is turning, and for the first time, Bitcoin is ready to experience all of this and more. This will not only attract more people, encourage adoption and encourage innovation, but it will also help the Bitcoin blockchain find a solution to its network security problem.

This new era of change is being led by Runesthat helped Bitcoin miners raise record US$107 million in revenue in a single day. This helped alleviate concerns surrounding the impact of the halving on miner revenue and Bitcoin’s “long-term security budget.”

Even traditional institutions are noticing this increase in Bitcoin activity, with analysts at Bernstein stating:

“Bitcoin is experiencing a ‘Defi summer’ like a moment Ethereum experienced in 2020, where several decentralized applications and tokens were launched on the Ethereum blockchain, leading to increased liquidity and transaction fees.”

Bernstein isn’t alone either; Franklin Templeton also observed a “renaissance of activity” in Bitcoin.

Launched alongside Bitcoin’s halving last month, there has been a lot of excitement surrounding Runes. This is quite evident in Bitcoin’s average transaction fee, which has been stabilizing but has been revived with the launch of the Runes protocol. At the beginning of this month, rates hovered around $5, but surpassed $128 for the first time on April 20, according to Y Charts. As a result, total transaction fees reached a record $80 million.

Average Bitcoin Transaction Fee | Source: Y Charts

The protocol itself has already recorded 1.9 million transactions and generated 1,366 BTC in fees, according to data provided by Dune Analysis. Data by NFT Pulse Meanwhile, it reveals that Bitcoin is the leading network in terms of trading revenue.

A new era for Bitcoin

All started with ordinals, which allows users to embed data into the Bitcoin blockchain. Ordinals have been a gigantic success, with over 66 million ordinal inscriptions created since 2021, generating more than 6,777 BTC (worth $450.8 million) in fees, according to Dune Analytics.

Of course, things can always be better, and thus came Runes, also created by Ordinals developer Casey Rodarmor. What Runes does is use Bitcoin’s unspent transaction outputs (UTX) and store data in the transactions’ OP_RETURN field. In contrast, the current Bitcoin BRC-20s token standard is less efficient and can clog the network.

This means that Rune keeps all data on-chain while being cheaper and more network efficient than previous standards. This way, Runes can offer a safer platform to launch fungible token projects, such as meme coins, and make transactions.

Retailers are already having fun with Bitcoin, with hundreds of tokens launched in less than a week. Additionally, the Runes ecosystem has grown to include DEXs, NFT marketplaces, launchpads, exchanges, lending protocols, explorers, analytics, and Runes-focused projects. Even centralized exchanges like OKX and Gate.io got in on the action, listing some of these newly created runes. This shows how, over time, this will lead to a vast and vibrant ecosystem around Bitcoin.

All this while the entire experience of creating and speculating on NFTs and meme coins on Bitcoin is still not perfect. As technology and user experience improve and people realize the true potential of Runes, this growth will only accelerate further.

So this is just the beginning, which means the project could see a drop in price, activity and rates in the short term. As we can already see, the rate is back to $32. However, in the long term, once the hype cools down, it will generate a veritable frenzy of ingenuity, integrations, and usefulness. Runes will soon be a billion-dollar ecosystem, leading to new blockchain capabilities and renewed enthusiasm.

All this enthusiasm, accessibility and technological superiority will make Rune change the Bitcoin landscape. It needs more legitimate games, definition and general infrastructure in place. The top 10 runes by market cap are memes and we will see this change in the coming months.

Overall, Bitcoin’s vast potential has been dormant until now, but with Runes, BTC is ready to realize all these possibilities. The base layer has already spent the last decade establishing itself as a secure and robust blockchain. Now, retail will be able to access Bitcoin again and experience its enormous value, which will take it to new heights.

z3º

z3º is the founder and CEO of Ordz Games, a blockchain-based gaming platform that develops on-chain games powered by Bitcoin, GameFi and DePIN. Ordz Games has launched the world’s first web3 gaming device, BitBoy, which allows users to interact with the Bitcoin blockchain and earn Bitcoin rewards. z3th has been in the crypto space since 2017 and is a serial entrepreneur with over a decade of experience.

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