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Exploring Runes Protocol
A year ago — Jan 2023 — in the depths of the bear market, Casey Rodarmor created the Ordinals protocol for “Bitcoin NFTs” (non fungible tokens), breathing versatility into an ecosystem known for its more conservative values & ideals. To the chagrin of many loyalists.
Now — April 2024 — Casey Rodarmor launched the Runes protocol — for minting digital tokens on top of the oldest and largest blockchain.
“The Runes Protocol is a new fungible token standard on the Bitcoin network that utilizes the UTXO (Unspent Transaction Outputs) model and OP_RETURN data fields to create and manage digital tokens efficiently.” Kucoin
Runes is essentially a streamlined, efficient alternative to the earlier BRC-20 token standard underpinning the likes of $ORDI.
Why It Matters
I mostly faded ordinals except procuring a Bitcoin Frog for $300. That same Frog has been worth up to $10k, and is currently sitting at circa $7k mcap. Of course I sold at $1.5k thinking jesus a 5x in a couple months is crazy — it is.
So the degen profit incentive is real.