Bitcoin Ordinals Introducing Runes: A New Fungible Token Protocol

Crypto News– A brand-new Bitcoin fungible token protocol has captured the spotlight.

Bitcoin Ordinals Introducing Runes: A New Fungible Token Protocol

Casey Rodarmor, the mind behind the Bitcoin Ordinals protocol, has introduced a fresh protocol named “Runes” exclusively designed for fungible tokens. This development was officially unveiled yesterday.

The Ordinals protocol has served as a platform for launching meme tokens and assets resembling NFTs on the Bitcoin blockchain, utilizing the BRC-20 standard. However, its current configuration has had the side effect of congesting the network and driving up transaction fees.

Rodarmor pointed out that the Ordinals protocol leads to ‘undesirable consequences of Unspent Transaction Output (UTXO) proliferation’ on the Bitcoin network.

UTXO represents the residual amount of Bitcoin remaining in an address after a transaction, essentially serving as the available balance for future transactions.

Each Ordinals transaction necessitates a separate Bitcoin transaction. In contrast, the Runes token balances will be stored within UTXOs, enabling each transaction output to ‘contain any amount of any number of runes,’ as explained in Rodarmor’s blog post.

A representative from the Ordinals marketplace, Ordinals Wallet, informed Decrypt that ‘Rune works better than BRC-20 in terms of fungible tokens. It’s more efficient and versatile, making it easier to transfer and exchange.’

The Ordinals Wallet team also experimented with the Rune protocol’s design by launching the first token, called RUNE, which they consider the ‘first valid practical use of the concepts’ outlined in Rodarmor’s introduction. Nevertheless, Rodarmor expressed reservations about introducing a more sophisticated token design on top of Bitcoin, stating that he is unsure whether ‘creating a new fungible token protocol for Bitcoin is a good idea.‘

He noted, ‘Fungible tokens are 99.9% scams and memes,’ alluding to the often speculative and frivolous nature of such tokens.