tl;dr
Bitcoin's new Runes fungible token standard launched alongside the quadrennial halving event, driving up network fees to unprecedented levels. Gate.io has listed three of the earliest Runes tokens, and there's a growing interest from centralized exchanges in adding Runes tokens to their listings, wi...
Bitcoin's new Runes fungible token standard launched alongside the quadrennial halving event, driving up network fees to unprecedented levels. Gate.io, a Cayman Islands-based exchange, has listed three of the earliest Runes tokens on Bitcoin: SATOSHI•NAKAMOTO, MEME•ECONOMICS, and WANKO•MANKO•RUNES. The mad rush to launch Runes tokens on Friday post-launch pushed Bitcoin network fees on the first post-halving blocks into the millions of dollars combined.
Early Runes tokens could lend projects provenance and appeal to traders, similar to the pattern seen with NFT-like Ordinals on Bitcoin last year. Centralized exchanges are showing interest in adding Runes tokens to their listings, with speculation that the first 10 Runes tokens are prime targets.
The introduction of Runes, a new standard for creating tokens on the Bitcoin blockchain, has sparked a frenzy reminiscent of the NFT craze, with early tokens seen as valuable and potentially appealing to traders. This could mark a significant shift in the crypto landscape if more centralized exchanges embrace Runes.
Bitcoin’s new Runes fungible token standard launched late Friday alongside the quadrennial halving event, and the immediate demand pushed network fees to a level never before seen on the original blockchain network. Already, at least one centralized exchange (or CEX) has already taken notice and gotten in on the action.
The Cayman Islands-based exchange Gate.io has already listed three of the earliest Runes tokens on Bitcoin: SATOSHI•NAKAMOTO (no connection to the pseudonymous Bitcoin creator), MEME•ECONOMICS, and WANKO•MANKO•RUNES. WANKO•MANKO•RUNES is the odd token out there, but the other two tokens have something in common besides the odd naming scheme with the interpunct between words (due to protocol naming conventions): They’re among the first 10 tokens etched via the Runes protocol.
There was a mad rush to launch Runes tokens on Friday when the protocol went live, so much so that it helped push Bitcoin network fees on the first several post-halving blocks into the millions of dollars combined.
As some creators told Decrypt last week, snatching one of those early slots would lend the project provenance and possibly make it seem more appealing (and valuable) to traders. After all, this same pattern played out with the NFT-like Ordinals on Bitcoin last year, with early inscription numbers fetching large sums of money on secondary marketplaces.
There’s speculation across social media that those first 10 Runes tokens—some of which haven’t actually been deployed yet—are the biggest targets for being listed on exchanges. That said, WANKO•MANKO•RUNES has already bucked the trend, perhaps because it’s built up some hype for being inspired by a story written by Runes protocol creator Casey Rodarmor.
Other notable Runes tokens minted to the Bitcoin blockchain in that first set of 10 projects include Rodarmor’s own uncapped UNCOMMON•GOODS (with an endless supply), the soon-to-be-airdropped DOG•GO•TO•THE•MOON tied to the Runestone Ordinals project, and RSIC•GENESIS•RUNE, also tied to an airdropped Ordinals collection, RSIC.
Centralized exchanges have a way of helping to legitimize assets, elevating them from the “degen” side of the crypto world and potentially putting them in front of many more eyes. Such exchanges are mainstream platforms that require ID and details about their customers, as opposed to decentralized exchanges, where anyone can buy and sell tokens.
The biggest players like Coinbase and Binance are centralized platforms—and a weekend tweet from Binance, interestingly, is being taken by some traders as a sign of interest from the exchange in Runes.
That’s purely speculation for now, but Binance has supported Bitcoin-based BRC-20 tokens. And centralized exchange OKX is dabbling in Runes via its “Web3 marketplace,” which enables peer-to-peer trading, but its core CEX has yet to list any Runes tokens. Gate.io in particular has a habit of making it to the hottest new thing in the digital asset space. Last year, the exchange was the first to list ORDI, the first and ultimately biggest BRC-20 token in the space. Binance, OKX, and other centralized exchanges now list ORDI, and it’s one of the top 100 most valuable cryptocurrencies overall by market cap. Will it again be a frontier pioneer on Runes, leading the charge that other exchanges will eventually follow?
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