On May 20, Casey, the founder of Ordinals, responded to the fact that the market value of Runes did not reach $1 billion by posting on the X platform: "Sorry, guys, it's over. Please stay tuned for the next Hell Money podcast, where I will commit seppuku and then Erin will behead me to end my pain." (Hell Money podcast is a Bitcoin-related podcast recorded by Casey) Previously, Casey joked that if "the market value of Runes ecosystem did not reach $1 billion within a month of its launch, he would commit seppuku."
Since the beginning of the year, Rune has been one of the most watched narratives and protocols in the Bitcoin ecosystem, but after Rune was launched, its market performance was not as good as expected. Despite this, well-known crypto KOLs and researchers have become more optimistic about Rune at this time. What are his reasons? What are the catalysts for the Rune market?
Here is Ignas’ original text:
The launch of Runes Protocol ended up being a “buy the news, sell the news” event. Despite this, the Runes community remains strong and the team dedicated to BTCFi continues to build. I believe it will take a little spark to reignite the Runes hype fire, and here are some potential catalysts for the future:
1. Listing on CEX
The first short-term catalyst is the listing of Runes tokens on major CEXs. Both Kraken and binance recently released research reports on Runes. Kraken even hinted that Runes will be listed on their exchange.
2. BTC Soft Fork
Currently, the trading experience for Runes is not much different from BRC 20 (although Magic Eden has made some UI improvements). But a Bitcoin soft fork like OP_CAT (or hype based on it) could bring major improvements to Bitcoin L2, smart contracts, and all of the BTCFi space.
3. Rune USDC/USDT
Another catalyst for BTCFi's growth could be the launch of USDC or USDT in Rune form on Bitcoin. Circle/Tether could pre-mine trillions of Rune tokens and issue/redeem them on demand. The demand for stablecoins in the Bitcoin ecosystem is low at the moment, but will increase as dApps such as Bitcoin AMM, lending, etc. improve their user experience.
Besides these, there are many other new catalysts for FOMO that will eventually appear in unexpected places. I was previously pessimistic about the launch of Runes Protocol, but now, I am more bullish on Runes every day.
I am waiting for the fifth wave of BTCFi. I believe it will come soon because narratives based on technological innovations tend to create multiple waves, and BTCFi is one of the hottest zero-to-one innovations of this cycle.
