The strength of the Bitcoin ecosystem’s Runes protocol has been significantly reflected in Runestone.
Recently, the floor price of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), once the king of NFTs, fell below 12 Ethereum (ETH). Although it is currently struggling to stand above 12 ETH, it has lost its position as the second NFT in terms of market value.
According to Coingecko data, Runestone's floor price climbed to 0.065 Bitcoin (BTC), equivalent to $4,505, a 33.2% increase in 24 hours. This jump has brought Runestone's market value to $506 million, surpassing BAYC's $411 million and becoming the second largest project in the NFT market.
Compared to the rise of BAYC, the market value of Runestone has grown rapidly. One month ago, Runestone, which had not yet released an airdrop, was extremely popular on the OTC platform Whales Market. Even though both buyers and sellers needed to double stake, its market value had reached $143 million at the time, and the transaction price was around $1,300.
Related reading: "Off-market price of $1,300, can Runestone become the top meme in the Bitcoin ecosystem?"
Runestone saw a 3.5x price surge in one month, from $1,300 to $4,505. Although in a currency circle full of legends of sudden wealth, such an increase may not be surprising, but considering that the total number of Runestones is only 110,000, this increase is particularly significant. Compared with the total amount of 10,000 common NFT projects, Runestone has ten times the issuance, and it runs on the Bitcoin network with relatively high transaction fees. Against this background, the growth of Runestone's liquidity and market capitalization can be described as an "elephant dancing."
Runes Protocol exceeds expectations
Why did Runestone’s market value surpass BAYC this month? Perhaps the main driving force came from the Runes protocol’s strong performance that exceeded market expectations.
It is expected that the Runes protocol will be officially launched on the mainnet later this month as the Bitcoin halving event approaches. As the "singularity" of the Bitcoin ecosystem's "big bang", Casey's influence on the entire Bitcoin ecosystem is unmatched, and the Runes protocol itself has a strong consensus. The Runes protocol itself carries a strong consensus foundation, and as this consensus continues to strengthen, the increase in asset value has become a market consensus.
In order to prevent the first Rune from being snatched away or pre-mined by VC or project parties, Casey decided to hardcode the first 10 Runes (Rune 0 - Rune 9) into the Runes protocol and only support open mint so that everyone can participate fairly.
However, not everyone can get the first chance to join the Runes protocol, and the threshold for actually participating in the Runes protocol mint is not low. Similar to the early days of the Ordinals protocol, the Runes protocol requires users to build a full Bitcoin node to participate in the new minting process, which is quite high for most ordinary users. Therefore, for those users who want to join the Runes protocol but face high barriers to entry, investing in assets that already have a certain consensus and influence, such as Runestone, has become a cost-effective option.
Therefore, as the halving is getting closer, the transaction volume and price of Runes concept NFTs are generally rising. As of the time of writing, according to magiceden data, among the top ten Bitcoin NFTs in terms of transaction volume, four of them, including Runestone, are Runes concept.
In fact, Runestone is not targeting BAYC
Although Runestone’s market value exceeds that of BAYC, Runestone’s benchmark is not BAYC.
According to Runestone founder Ordinals developer Leonidas on social media, after the token swap, Runestone's goal is simple: to create the world's top memecoin on the world's top blockchain. Runestone's MEME coin code and supply will be determined by the community, and it does not necessarily need to be related to the Runestone theme. The design concept is completely open.
"Everyone mistakenly thinks Runestone is an NFT collectible, but within a month, everyone will think of Runestone as Memecoin. If a randomly pre-sold Memecoin can soar to a market value of $1 billion overnight, imagine what Memecoin on the Bitcoin chain can do," Leonidas wrote on social media.
Obviously, Runestone's competitors are not NFT projects such as BAYC, but top Meme coins such as DogeCoin, Shiba Inu and PEPE.
Compared to the market capitalizations of some of the top meme coins on the market today—DogeCoin’s market capitalization is $28 billion, Shiba Inu’s market capitalization is $16 billion, and PEPE’s market capitalization is $2.9 billion—Runestone’s current market capitalization of $500 million has surpassed the former NFT leader BAYC, but it still has some way to go to become a top meme coin.
As for whether Runestone will be able to stand firm in the battle against many Runes assets or be "defeated" after the Runes Protocol is launched on the mainnet, it will take some time to verify.
A new development recently announced by Leonidas is that Runestone NFT holders will have the opportunity to receive three rounds of Runes Memecoin airdrops, one later this month, one later this year, and "when we become the top Memecoin in the world."
Interestingly, Leonidas revealed that one of the tokens will be related to “dogs” and every Runestone holder will receive an airdrop of Runes “Dogcoins”.
