Off-market price is $1300, can Runestone become the top meme in the Bitcoin ecosystem?

Written by: Jaleel, BlockBeats

The unreleased airdrop asset now has a market value of $143 million.

As of the time of writing, according to Whales Market data, the highest transaction price for the Runestone OTC project has reached the $1300 range.

Leonidas, the founder of the Ordinals project and also of Runestone, stated on social media that block 832849 and the parent inscription of Runestone have been completed in collaboration with OrdinalsBot and MarathonDigitalHoldings. With the progress of the airdrop process and Leonidas's promotion of the Runestone project, the price of Runestone OTC has been continuously rising even before the airdrop has landed.

According to the price trend line organized by Doggfather, it can be seen that the highest price of Runestone OTC approached $1600 on March 5, setting a new record for Runestone's valuation.

Image source: Doggfather

Most active Bitcoin communities may have heard of the large-scale airdrop of the Runestone project, but the high expectations for Runestone are clearly not just due to its extensive airdrop.

Aiming to Create the Top Meme on the Runestone Protocol

Many early Bitcoin ecosystem users know that Casey has always been somewhat dissatisfied with the BRC-20 FT protocol that is parasitic on the Ordinals protocol. Therefore, in September 2023, Casey released the concept for this new FT protocol, Runestone.

This new token protocol, which aims to be built on Bitcoin, was later referred to as "Runes" by the Chinese community. Runes are native to Bitcoin's unspent transaction output (UTXO) model. This minimizes the generation of "garbage" UTXOs, achieving more responsible UTXO management and a smaller on-chain footprint.

Related reading: “What You Need to Know Before the Bitcoin Runes Protocol Launches”

The Consensus of the Runes Protocol Has Already Been Reflected

On December 16 last year, Casey announced the launch date of the Runes protocol mainnet at an event during Taipei Blockchain Week, which will be released at Bitcoin block height 840,000, coinciding with the fourth Bitcoin halving, expected around late April.

As the "singularity" of the Bitcoin ecosystem's "big bang," Casey's influence is unmatched throughout the Bitcoin ecosystem, and the Runes protocol itself has a strong consensus.

As the consensus around the Runes protocol strengthens, the value of the assets has already been realized in advance.

According to Casey, there will be two issuance methods for Runes in the future: fixed total supply (the project team can pre-mine) and Open Mint (fair launch, the project team cannot pre-mine).

To prevent the first Rune from being snatched or pre-mined by VCs or the project team, Casey decided to hard-code the first 10 Runes (Rune 0 - Rune 9) into the Runes protocol, only supporting open minting, allowing everyone to participate fairly. He also solicited interesting and memeable token names, units, and minting rules from the community. Casey mentioned several names he found interesting, such as COMMUNISTRUNE, ANARCHISTRUNE, CYPERPUNKRUNE, etc.

Leonidas's Runestone project shares the same name as the Runestone protocol, which already gives Runestone an edge over most projects.

According to Leonidas's statements on social media, after being converted into tokens, Runestone's goal is simple: to create the world's top memecoin on the world's top blockchain.

In comparison to several existing top market cap Memes, Doge has a market cap of $21 billion, Shib has a market cap of $18 billion, and PEPE has a market cap of $2.8 billion. Looking at the largest Bitcoin market cap Memes, ORDI has a market cap of $1.5 billion, SATS has a market cap of $1.3 billion. If Runestone aims to become a top Meme, there is still an expected 10x growth potential.

Cook in Front, RSIC Behind

Although many community members may say that this is not directly from Casey himself and lacks "orthodox" lineage, we have already seen the price support for the Runes concept, even if the current projects and assets in the Runes concept do not possess "orthodoxy."

For example, the Runealpha protocol, released last December as a fork of the Runes protocol, was very popular at the time. The first token of Runealpha, Cook, maintained a high price for a long time until Casey clarified that Runealpha and Cook were unrelated to him.

If Cook and Runealpha's performance were not outstanding enough, RSIC can largely illustrate this issue.

RSIC stands for Rune Specific Inscription Circuits, with a total of 21,000 Ordinals NFTs, 90% of which were airdropped to holders by the project team at their own expense, costing over 3 BTC. Due to the extensive airdrop scale and innovative airdrop format, RSIC was even speculated by the community to be issued by Casey.

Although specific airdrop rules and standards have not been disclosed, community speculation mainly comes from the blue-chip NFTs held in wallets. After activation, RSIC began "mining," locking in profits as a share of a future token to be deployed by the project team in Runes.

Recently, the individual price of RSIC has remained above 0.1 BTC, and its current market cap exceeds $150 million, firmly placing it among the top five Bitcoin NFTs. As of now, the total trading volume of Runestone has reached $1.6 million, with a total of 110,000 pieces. Based on the current price of $1300, Runestone's market cap is $143 million.

This also means that even before the official airdrop, Runestone's market cap has approached that of RSIC.

Breaking the Record for the Largest Block in Bitcoin History

In terms of hype and marketing, Leonidas has also put in considerable effort.

On March 3, Leonidas posted on social media that earlier that day, Runestone mined the largest block in Bitcoin history, breaking the previous record of 3.96MB set by Taproot Wizards, reaching a block size of 3.97 MB.

Afterward, TO also confirmed this on social media, stating that a top-level Bitcoin Core developer sent him a DM, confirming that the 3.97 MB inscription is currently the largest block.

Recalling February 1 of last year, Taproot Wizards deliberately planned the largest block and transaction in Bitcoin history, which caused a significant stir in the Bitcoin ecosystem.

Blockstream CEO Adam Back, Bitcoin Core developer LukeDashjr, and others opposed this, arguing that it would cause the Bitcoin blockchain size to rapidly expand, significantly increasing the requirements for running full nodes, leading to a decrease in the number of full nodes across the network and reducing censorship resistance. At the same time, unexpectedly large transactions and blocks would impact wallet, mining pool, browser, and other ecosystem facilities, causing some facilities to malfunction, such as certain transactions failing to parse correctly.

At that time, Taproot Wizards founder Udi Wertheimer stated that Bitcoin minimalists need to let go of their high horses and biases and accept that the blockchain can be used for more than just simple transactions. Bitcoin should not only be used for simple transactions but can also achieve more functions through technological upgrades, with NFTs being one of them.

Interestingly, unlike the strong opposition faced by Udi Wertheimer at that time, Leonidas has refreshed the record for the largest block in Bitcoin history through Runestone with little opposition.

The Artist Carving Marble Enters Bitcoin

In addition, the Runestone project has garnered significant attention due to its team.

Founder Leonidas is well-known among early members of the Bitcoin ecosystem, and he can be considered a big OG in the Bitcoin ecosystem, having made significant contributions during its early development and possessing considerable influence.

Recently, Leonidas also announced their designer, Léo Caillard, an artist from Paris known for his marble sculptures. The idea of a marble sculptor carving runestones on the Bitcoin chain is itself very intriguing.

Leonidas carving

In his social media, Léo Caillard expressed his thoughts on Bitcoin NFTs and the Runestone project: "There is not much difference from the enduring quality of marble; I know that using Bitcoin blocks as my medium will allow me to create something that future generations can appreciate."

Just as the great marble sculptures of ancient times have been preserved for thousands of years, the runestones will also be preserved.

Details of the runestone

Under this tweet, the official account of Bitcoin Wizard NFT commented: "They used to tell me there were no real artists on the Bitcoin blockchain," expressing their recognition and tribute to the art.

A Gift for All Early Users

The airdrop rules for Runestone essentially cover all active Ordinals users.

It is reported that the airdrop rules for Runestone are: addresses holding 100 blue-chip inscriptions at the time of the snapshot will receive 1 runestone; addresses containing 3 random JPEGs at the time of the snapshot will receive 1 runestone. Clearly, the airdrop algorithm for runestones is not favorable to whales but aims to cover as many early Bitcoin users as possible.

No presale, no team allocation, no early access, fair launch—this is the spirit that Bitcoin NFTs have had from the very beginning. As an OG in the Bitcoin ecosystem, Leonidas adhered to this principle during the Runestone launch, ensuring fairness and inclusivity in the distribution.

So, can the current off-market price of $1300 for Runestone truly become the top Meme on the Runes protocol?

Before the Bitcoin halving and the official launch of the Runes protocol, this answer is hard to say. But even now, before the airdrop has landed, we can indeed see Runestone's influence in the market, and the runestones possess the conditions to become a top project on multiple levels.