Bitcoin Runes: A New Era for Fungible Tokens on Bitcoin

Upon its launch in 2009, the Bitcoin (BTC) blockchain was envisioned to support only one crypto asset — its native BTC cryptocurrency. Fast forward to early 2023, and a significant innovation has altered the landscape of the world's largest chain: Ordinals. The brainchild of developer Casey Rodarmor, this protocol facilitates the direct creation of NFTs on Bitcoin in the form of inscriptions — pieces of data embedded into satoshis, the smallest units of a Bitcoin.

Soon afterward, a new token standard that leverages the Ordinals protocol, BRC-20, was introduced to enable Bitcoin-based fungible cryptocurrencies. BRC-20 has led to a surge in the number of new fungible cryptocurrencies on the network, nearly all of them meme coins.

Despite its innovative nature, the BRC-20 standard has attracted harsh criticism from many Bitcoin enthusiasts, partly due to its tendency to congest the network. Responding to these concerns, Casey Rodarmor unveiled a new groundbreaking solution in late 2023: Runes, a technology that facilitates the development of fungible cryptocurrencies on Bitcoin while addressing the inefficiencies of the BRC-20 standard.

The Runes fungible token protocol is scheduled to launch in April 2024 to coincide with the highly anticipated Bitcoin halving event. Bitcoin Runes represents a significant milestone in the storied blockchain's history. It might unlock new use cases for Bitcoin-based fungible tokens — and create a vibrant new ecosystem on the chain.

Key Takeaways:

• Runes is a new Bitcoin protocol designed to facilitate the issuance and use of fungible cryptocurrencies using the blockchain’s native UTXO transaction model.

• Compared to the alternative technology for creating Bitcoin-based fungible crypto assets — the BRC-20 token standard — the Runes protocol is much more efficient and easier to use.

• Runes was proposed in 2023 by developer Casey Rodarmor, who is also the creator of the Bitcoin Ordinals protocol. It’s scheduled to go live at the next Bitcoin halving event, on or around Apr 15, 2024.

What Is the Runes Protocol?

The year 2023 proved to be an eventful one for the Bitcoin blockchain. First, in January 2023, developer Casey Rodarmor introduced a novel way of creating Bitcoin-based NFTs by attaching small bits of custom data, called inscriptions, to satoshis, the smallest units of which a Bitcoin is composed. The new technology, which Rodarmor named Ordinals, made it possible to create Bitcoin NFTs without any smart contract functionality.

Just two months later, in March 2023, the pseudonymous developer Domo used the Ordinals technology to describe a method of creating fungible cryptocurrencies on Bitcoin. That’s how the BRC-20 fungible token standard was born. Domo warned that the new standard was still an experimental technology. Crypto enthusiasts and developers, however, aren’t particularly known for being taken aback by warnings, and within months of the standard’s introduction, hundreds of BRC-20 tokens emerged on Bitcoin.

Unfortunately, the BRC-20 standard is an inefficient and complex way to create cryptocurrencies on Bitcoin. To address the critical drawbacks of BRC-20, Rodarmor proposed a new fungible token protocol: Bitcoin Runes.

Key Features of the Runes Protocol

Runes introduces a highly efficient method for creating fungible tokens that demand fewer resources than the BRC-20 standard. This efficiency is primarily achieved due to the protocol's use of Bitcoin's native unspent transaction output (UTXO) model for creating and managing fungible assets.

In general, when any transaction between two addresses occurs on Bitcoin, the transfer amount is sent to the recipient's address as an unspent output — an amount available to be spent for future transfers. Every Bitcoin address balance is also maintained in the form of these unspent transaction outputs. This system of transferring and maintaining balances as unspent output of future transactions — the UTXO model — is what distinguishes Bitcoin from many other blockchains, including Ethereum (ETH). It’s this UTXO model on which the Runes protocol bases its method of creating fungible cryptocurrencies.

Upon the creation of a Runes token, it’s assigned to a specific UTXO through a simple protocol message. A single UTXO can hold any amount of Runes token balances, and the UTXO is used to track the Runes balances directly. As a result, Runes impose a much lighter load on the network, as compared to BRC-20 tokens. Moreover, the minting process for Runes-based tokens is considerably easier than the intricate procedures involved in creating BRC-20 tokens.

Emergence of the Bitcoin Runes Protocol

BRC-20 tokens have faced ferocious criticism right from the start for several reasons, including the heavy load they place on the network, the complexity of minting and managing them, and the proliferation of useless meme coins based on the standard. Probably the number one criticism relates to the network bloat these tokens create. The way BRC-20 tokens are issued and managed leads to many "junk" UTXOs clogging up the network.

In September 2023, Rodarmor addressed these concerns in a blog post, introducing the Runes protocol with the hope of resolving the main issues associated with the BRC-20 standard.

In the same post, Rodarmor announced his intention to unveil Runes around the time of the next Bitcoin block reward halving event, projected to occur on or around Apr 15, 2024. It’s anticipated that the first Runes-based native token will emerge, courtesy of Rodarmor’s own efforts, right at the next mined block following the halving event. As of the time of this writing (March 20, 2024), no Runes tokens officially associated with its protocol have been launched.

How Does the Runes Protocol Work?

As noted above, Runes relies on Bitcoin's native UTXO transaction model to create and manage fungible cryptocurrencies. Consequently, the core operations related to these crypto assets — issuance, transfers and storage — are all carried out efficiently, with a relatively light load on the underlying Bitcoin blockchain.

Token Issuance and Transfer

To create or transfer Runes tokens, the protocol assigns messages to UTXOs via OP_RETURN — a function used to store transactional information on Bitcoin. Recall that a UTXO is simply the output of a Bitcoin transaction, which is stored at an address on the network.

When issuing a Runes token, the message sent via the protocol must contain two fields —SYMBOL and DECIMALS. The SYMBOL field defines the ticker for the new Runes cryptocurrency. It can only accept letters, A to Z, with no numbers or special characters permitted. If the ticker has already been reserved, the transaction will be rejected. The DECIMALS field specifies the decimal precision for the new token.

For Runes transfers, the message assigned to a UTXO must contain three fields — ID, OUTPUT and AMOUNT. ID is the identifier of the token being sent, OUTPUT designates which UTXO the token is being sent along and AMOUNT indicates the actual transfer amount.

In addition to these fields, the OP_RETURN message data must include an uppercase R in order to signal to the network that this is a Runes transaction.

Data Storage 

The OP_RETURN message data assigned to a UTXO is all that Runes tokens require in terms of data storage. Thanks to this messaging system, which is integrated into Bitcoin’s native UTXO model, Runes produces a very modest impact on the network.

Runes vs. Ordinals: The BRC-20 Standard

The Runes protocol inevitably draws comparisons with the other method of creating fungible cryptocurrencies on the Bitcoin network — the BRC-20 token standard.

Upon its launch in early 2023, BRC-20 was regarded as a significant innovation, the first technology to enable fungible crypto assets directly on Bitcoin. This token standard relies on the Ordinal theory as described by Casey Rodarmor at the launch of the Bitcoin Ordinals protocol. Rodarmor noted that each satoshi on the Bitcoin network could be uniquely traced by the chronological order in which it’s been mined. He also introduced a way of attaching custom data to a satoshi using the protocol. 

The Ordinals protocol ushered in an era of Bitcoin NFTs. While Ordinals are primarily geared toward the creation of NFTs, the BRC-20 experimental token standard is based on the adaptation of the protocol to allow the issuance of fungible crypto assets.

In contrast to the Runes protocol, BRC-20 doesn’t utilize Bitcoin's native UTXO model to facilitate token operations. As a result, the process of issuing and managing BRC-20 tokens has produced a considerable volume of redundant UTXOs generated on the Bitcoin chain. This has led to significant network congestion, observed by many Bitcoin users since the arrival of the first BRC-20 tokens.

Runes vs. Ordinals: Further Differences

However, the load on the network isn’t the only feature that distinguishes the Runes protocol from the BRC-20 standard (although this is probably the most impactful difference between the two technologies). BRC-20 also features a complicated process of creating and managing crypto tokens, whereas Runes is a relatively straightforward technology. In theory, any Bitcoin user can issue a BRC-20 token directly on the Bitcoin blockchain. However, the process is quite technically involved for most ordinary users. As a result, many BRC-20 token issuers have to rely on third-party tools to create and manage their assets.

Additionally, Runes provides another critical advantage over BRC-20 — direct compatibility with Lightning Network, a popular Layer 2 protocol for Bitcoin scalability. Lightning Network facilitates fast and cost-effective Bitcoin transactions, and Runes-based assets achieve compatibility with it by utilizing the OP_RETURN messaging data, the key component of a Runes transaction.

Future of the Bitcoin Runes Protocol

Runes is an essential step in the development of a fungible asset ecosystem on Bitcoin. It all started with the introduction of the BRC-20 standard. Now, Runes is shaping up as the next phase of this critical development. The great thing is that the protocol brings transaction efficiency, user-friendliness and compatibility to Bitcoin's UTXO system — features that BRC-20 tokens sorely lack. 

The Runes protocol's advantages could lead to the emergence of critical use cases over the coming months and beyond. 

First, Runes has the potential to establish an ecosystem of functionally useful cryptocurrencies on Bitcoin. While the BRC-20 standard facilitates the creation of numerous tokens on the chain, nearly all of them are meme coins, with no practical applications beyond jokes, humor or crypto-themed satire. 

In contrast, the lightweight nature of Runes tokens and transactions could facilitate the development of payment systems and solutions directly on Bitcoin. By encouraging such payment activity, these solutions could open up opportunities for substantial transaction fee revenue, in addition to other benefits for operators willing to leverage Runes technology.

Secondly, the integration with Lightning Network and other Layer 2 Bitcoin scalability solutions might see Runes tokens being used for cost-effective asset transfers via these platforms.

However, it's important to acknowledge an inherent limitation that the Runes protocol shares with BRC-20 — namely, its lack of smart contract functionality. Similar to the BRC-20 standard and the Ordinals protocol, Runes enables crypto asset operations without using smart contracts, which Bitcoin isn't capable of supporting. This lack of programmability inherent in smart contracts might limit the potential use cases of the Runes protocol.

The Bottom Line

It remains to be seen how much of an impact the Runes protocol will have on Bitcoin’s ecosystem and user community. The broader consensus is that Runes will be an even grander development for the blockchain than either Ordinals or BRC-20. Attention is now being focused on the upcoming date of Apr 15, 2024, as many crypto enthusiasts await the arrival of the upcoming Bitcoin halving event — while others are eagerly looking forward to seeing the first Bitcoin Runes token.

#LearnWithBybit