Top Bitcoin Runes Meme Tokens You Should Know

The fourth Bitcoin halving event, on Apr 19, 2024, was accompanied by another momentous occasion for the blockchain — the launch of Runes. Right at block number 840,000, the protocol's founder, Bitcoin developer Casey Rodarmor, etched the first Runes token, UNCOMMON•GOODS, officially kick-starting a new era for the Bitcoin blockchain. Following the launch of Rodarmor's own token, a flurry of activity on the chain led to the launch of thousands of Runes tokens, mostly meme coins, within the first day of Runes’ operations. 

As of May 2, 2024, the number of Runes tokens on the network is already measured in tens of thousands, with dozens of new tokens being etched per hour. By some estimates, Bitcoin Runes transactions make up 68% of all the activity on its network, a feat not witnessed in a long time. What are Runes tokens, and which ones are worth paying attention to right now? We cover it all in this article.

Key Takeaways:

• Runes, officially launched on Apr 19, 2024 to coincide with the recent Bitcoin halving, has led to the creation of thousands of meme coins on the world's largest blockchain.

• Transactions involving Runes tokens now represent the majority of the network traffic on Bitcoin, with the leading Runes token, DOG•GO•TO•THE•MOON, amassing a spectacular market cap of $333 million within two weeks of its launch.

What Are Bitcoin Runes?

Bitcoin Runes are fungible tokens created using the Runes protocol, launched right after the latest Bitcoin halving on Apr 19, 2024. It facilitates the efficient issuance and management of fungible cryptocurrencies using the Bitcoin blockchain's native unspent transaction output (UTXO) account model. 

Unlike Ethereum-based native assets, Runes tokens' creation and operations don't require any smart contract functionality. All of the operations involving Runes are executed by attaching lightweight messages to Bitcoin UTXOs, which represent the outputs of ordinary asset transfers on Bitcoin’s network. These outputs are held as address balances and can be spent during future transactions. 

The launch of Bitcoin Runes led to the creation of thousands of cryptocurrencies based on its network within hours. Most of these tokens are meme coins, although some are envisioned to support future use cases in areas like decentralized finance (DeFi) and social finance (SocialFi). 

Currently, the most popular crypto marketplaces for trading Runes are Magic Eden and the UniSat Marketplace.

Top Bitcoin Runes Meme Tokens

Runes tokens are taking the Bitcoin community by storm. While many thousands of them now exist, we'd like to cover some of the most notable ones in this review. You’ll notice that these tokens typically have odd, lengthy names. This is mainly due to the requirements of the Runes protocol, which is designed to prevent name squatting at this early stage. 

The length requirement will gradually shorten over time as more network blocks are processed. Currently, Runes token tickers must be between 13 and 26 characters. After every 17,500 blocks, the minimum requirement will be reduced by one character.

UNCOMMON•GOODS (UNCOMMONGOODS)

What better token to start our review with than the very first Runes crypto, UNCOMMON•GOODS, launched by the protocol's founder, Casey Rodarmor? 

Hard-coded as Runes token #0, UNCOMMON•GOODS has no preset maximum supply, which distinguishes it from many other Runes assets. The rules for the token specified by Rodarmor state that its minting will continue until Bitcoin block #1,050,000, which translates to a period of approximately four years from now.

UNCOMMON•GOODS is currently priced at $1.12. Given its symbolic status as the first Runes token and a creation of Casey Rodarmor himself, UNCOMMON•GOODS is likely to be among the most valuable Runes cryptos in the future. However, given its extended, four-year mint period, investors will have plenty of time to get their hands on it by waiting for transaction fees to drop before acquiring the token.

DOG•GO•TO•THE•MOON (DOG)

This is the Runes asset that's been making giant waves in the Bitcoin Ocean. The DOG•GO•TO•THE•MOON token's entire supply of 100 billion units has been distributed to the holders of Runestone Ordinals NFTs. At the moment, the token confidently dominates the market cap and trading volume rankings in the Runes category, leaving the second-place SATOSHI•NAKAMOTO far behind.

As of May 3, 2024, DOG•GO•TO•THE•MOON has amassed a market cap of $333 million within just two weeks on the market and is currently trading at around $0.003.

The token's meteoric rise has already prompted comparisons with Dogecoin (DOGE) — the highest-capped meme coin in the industry. While DOGE's $21 billion market cap is vastly higher, many note that it took the king of meme coins several years to become popular, while the DOG token has stolen the spotlight within just a few days of its launch. This is leading some observers to believe that DOG could rise to challenge DOGE in the not-too-distant future.

SATOSHI•NAKAMOTO (丰)

One of the first Runes to be etched on Bitcoin, SATOSHI•NAKAMOTO is also an exceedingly popular token. As of May 3, 2024, its entire supply of 168,000 units has been minted, creating significant scarcity for the asset priced at $2.15. The SATOSHI•NAKAMOTO token is currently the second-highest-capped and second most actively traded Runes token on the market, behind the undisputed leader of trading activity, DOG•GO•TO•THE•MOON.

SEPPUKU•IN•MAY•AND•GO•AWAY

The fatalistically named SEPPUKU•IN•MAY•AND•GO•AWAY token is another popular Runes asset inspired by Casey Rodarmor's tweet about committing seppuku if the Runes ecosystem fails to hit $1 billion in market cap within a month of its launch. 

SEPPUKU•IN•MAY•AND•GO•AWAY has a maximum supply of 21 million and was launched on Apr 24, 2024, with a pre-minted supply of 100,000. The remaining 20,900,000 SEPPUKU tokens have also already been minted, with token currently available on Magic Eden for about 18 satoshis, or roughly $0.01 per unit.

RSIC•GENESIS•RUNE (RSIC)

RSIC•GENESIS•RUNE (Runes token #8) is one of the earliest Runes, minted precisely at Bitcoin's 840,000th block. It is currently priced at $0.011 and has a supply of 21 billion units, with the entire supply having been airdropped to holders of the popular RSIC Ordinals NFT collection. Any wallet that had held an RSIC NFT before block #840,000 received a distribution of these tokens. 

GAME•OF•BITCOIN (GAMES)

The GAME•OF•BITCOIN token has been issued by Ordz Games, a project dedicated to developing GameFi solutions for the Bitcoin ecosystem. Unlike the other Runes tokens, the GAME•OF•BITCOIN potentially has functions beyond that of a meme coin. Ordz Games introduced GAME•OF•BITCOIN to support its gaming ecosystem and possibly decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN) use cases. According to CoinGecko, the token has a maximum supply of 21 million, all pre-minted by Ordz Games. It currently trades at $0.56 and boasts an easy-to-remember #111 on the Runes protocol.

DECENTRALIZED

DECENTRALIZED is Runes token #2, which automatically makes it a big deal for any Runes enthusiast. Its entire supply of 21 billion was pre-minted and is currently held by its issuer, the NFT project CyberKongz. DECENTRALIZED currently trades at 5.05 sats ($0.003) on Magic Eden.

On Apr 25, 2024, CyberKongs announced the token's supply would be distributed as follows: 

• 91% to the holders of the project's own Prometheans Ordinals NFT collection 

• 4.5% to be allocated across 20 major Ordinals collection communities 

• 4.5% to launch contributors.

WANKO•MANKO•RUNES (WANKO)

Derived from a comedic short story penned by Casey Rodarmor in 2021 (and personally endorsed by him), the WANKO•MANKO•RUNES token currently holds the third-highest market cap among Runes assets. The token's creator had set a mint schedule that allowed the issuance of new tokens between Bitcoin blocks 840,010 and 840,094. During this time, around 75 million tokens, or 7.5% of the 1 billion total supply, were minted. WANKO•MANKO•RUNES has a current price of $0.19.

Although the token has no active mints right now, there could be opportunities to mint new units in the future as the majority of the total supply remains unissued.

Z•Z•Z•Z•Z•FEHU•Z•Z•Z•Z•Z

The Z•Z•Z•Z•Z•FEHU•Z•Z•Z•Z•Z token claims the honor of being Rune #1, the first asset etched immediately after Rodarmor's UNCOMMON•GOODS. Its maximum supply is specified at 111.11 million units. Of these, 110,000,000 were pre-minted, leaving only a bit more than 1 million tokens to be minted during the first days since its launch. Even though all of this post-launch supply has been minted, you can always get the symbolically important Rune #1 via marketplaces such as Magic Eden. As of the time of writing (May 3, 2024), a unit of the token trades on Magic Eden at 35,147 satoshis, or approximately $0.19.

MEME•ECONOMICS (MEMERUNE)

Runes token #7 MEME•ECONOMICS has a supply cap of 21 million, all of which have been minted. Although the minting process for the token has concluded, it's widely available on select marketplaces, including Magic Eden. As of May 3, 2024,  MEME•ECONOMICS is trading at around $0.258.

LOBO•THE•WOLF•PUP

Another Runes token from the first ten etched on Bitcoin, LOBO•THE•WOLF•PUP has a supply of 21 billion, all of which have already been minted by its creator, Buoyant Capital. The token issuer has already airdropped 77.5% of the LOBO supply to three groups: holders of Runestone Ordinals NFTs, Rune Doors Ordinals NFTs, and dual holders of NFTs from both collections. The remaining 22.5% of the supply is reserved by the issuer for project-related initiatives, such as exchange listings, marketing and community development. LOBO•THE•WOLF•PUP is currently priced at approximately $0.0011.

How Does Bitcoin Runes Differ from BRC-20 and Ordinals?

Bitcoin Runes tokens are often compared to tokens based on another fungible Bitcoin standard — BRC-20. The key difference between the two standards lies in the efficiency of token issuance and operations. While Runes provides an efficient, lightweight method of token etching and minting that’s based on Bitcoin's native UTXO model, the BRC-20 standard creates a large amount of "junk" UTXOs on Bitcoin during token generation and transfer operations, congesting the network and leading to performance degradation.

Another frequently evoked comparison is between Runes and Bitcoin Ordinals. Both are inventions of Rodarmor, who first introduced the Ordinals technology back in January 2023. The key difference between the two is that Runes is a standard for fungible cryptocurrencies, while Ordinals is a protocol designed to facilitate the creation of distinct, non-fungible assets, otherwise known as Bitcoin-based NFTs.

Closing Thoughts

Thanks to the way it leverages the world's largest blockchain, Runes holds significant long-term potential. There are, of course, some downsides to the technology. For instance, it requires two transactions to sell tokens. However, as the protocol matures and major centralized exchanges (CEXs) begin to offer Runes tokens, we expect the adoption of these assets to skyrocket. 

Moreover, new use cases for Runes tokens will emerge, thanks to the first Runes-focused Bitcoin Layer 2 protocols appearing on the horizon. Platforms like RuneChain, a new specialized Layer 2 dedicated to Runes tokens, will further drive the adoption of these innovative crypto assets.

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