AI Summary
Show More
Quickly grasp the article's content and gauge market sentiment in just 30 seconds!
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: