Runes, a rune protocol designed to address the network congestion issues caused by BRC20, will be launched after the Bitcoin halving. This article provides a comprehensive guide on how to participate in Runes, including registering wallets and splitting UTXOs.
Since the explosion of the Bitcoin ecosystem last year, it has quickly become one of the hottest tracks in the market. The infrastructure built in this ecosystem can be divided into two categories: scaling solutions/interoperability protocols, such as Bitcoin’s L2 Merlin, which attracted over $3 billion in less than two months; and asset issuance protocols, such as BRC20 introduced by Ordinals last year, as well as RGB++, Atomical, and Stamps, which have attracted a large amount of capital. Currently, the total market value of BRC20 tokens exceeds $2.3 billion, and the first asset issued on RGB++, $Seal, achieved an astonishing 300-fold increase on the day of its listing.
Now, the market’s attention is turning to the upcoming launch of the Runes protocol, which will coincide with the Bitcoin halving. Given the success of BRC20, many people are betting that Runes has the potential to become the next hundred-fold opportunity. Runes was proposed by Casey Rodarmor, the founder of Ordinals, in September last year. Its purpose is to solve the problems of network congestion and abnormalities caused by BRC20, which affect normal transactions. It is an asset issuance protocol based on UTXO that is more lightweight and concise.
The main difference between BRC20 and Runes is that BRC20 stores data in the witness part of the transaction (after Bitcoin’s Segwit upgrade in 2017, a transaction consists of the Transaction part and the Witness part), while Runes uses the OP_RETURN function to directly store data in Bitcoin’s UTXO. This method ensures that token data is separate from transaction data, making token management simpler and more transparent.
Currently, the total market value of Pre-Runes projects has exceeded $1.2 billion, and Runestone has become the second-largest NFT by market value.
Although the innovation of Runes has sparked extensive discussions, whether it will bring significant improvements in the early stages of its launch, especially in terms of user experience, remains to be seen. After all, technological innovation and market enthusiasm often promote each other. As long as developers, project parties, and players continue to join and build, there is hope that the technology will gradually move towards perfection while maintaining its popularity.
Casey Rodarmor, the founder of Runes, even boldly stated last month that the market value in the first month after the launch of Runes will exceed $1 billion, otherwise, he will commit suicide.
In addition, compared to BRC20/Ordinals led by the Chinese community last year, the overseas community led by $PUPS has once again prospered the runic ecosystem this year. With more and more well-known overseas KOLs joining the promotion, it shows that the Western community’s acceptance of runic is increasing, and the potential market is huge.
Currently, there are mainly four ways to participate in Runes:
1) Direct minting: To participate in the first wave of minting, you can’t miss the deployment of the 0th rune by the Casey team after the launch of Runes (originally, it was 0-9 runes, but on the 18th, Casey stated that only the 0th rune will be deployed). This adopts a fair minting mode, or observe if there are any other potential good projects (with unique community culture, Ordinals OG project party, or other blue-chip NFT project parties, Ansem’s endorsement, etc.). This part also involves installing a Bitcoin full node (Windows tutorial, Mac tutorial), as well as advanced “UTXO splitting”. The tutorial will focus on the latter.
2) Pre-Runes projects: There are already multiple Pre-Runes projects in the market, which can be viewed in the Pre-Runes list on Magic Eden. Some BRC20 tokens, such as $PUPS and $Ainn, are also included. By purchasing these projects in advance, you can expect to benefit from the appreciation of runes themselves and also wait for the airdrop benefits brought by the launch of the Runes protocol.
3) Secondary market trading: To trade in the secondary market, you need to find exchanges that have open trading for runes as soon as possible. Currently supported exchanges include Magic Eden, OKX (also supports minting), RunePro, and Saturn.
4) Participate in projects that support the Runes protocol: Another way to obtain runes is to participate in other projects that support the Runes protocol. For example, the UniCross platform in the Merlin ecosystem has introduced the concept of “rune token exchange” through RUFI, allowing BRC-20 tokens to be exchanged for rune tokens at a 1:1 ratio. 25% of RUFI has been distributed to Merlin and UniCross users through airdrops, and the remaining 75% will be issued through fair minting.
In conclusion, the above four ways of participation all require a Bitcoin wallet. Popular wallets include Unisat, OKX (recommended for mobile), and Xverse (recommended for computers). The following tutorial will focus on the registration and UTXO splitting process using the OKX wallet:
1) Registering the wallet: Go to the OKX Web3 wallet page, click “Create Wallet,” and choose “Mnemonic” as the creation method. This is because if you choose the “private key wallet,” the Bitcoin network will not support Taproot addresses. However, Taproot addresses are commonly used in the Bitcoin ecosystem, so remember to use Taproot addresses when making Bitcoin transfers.
Note: OKX also explains that its BTC chain supports four types of addresses, representing the original addresses and other addresses introduced through upgrades, which can transfer to each other.
2) UTXO splitting/wallet separation: UTXO splitting can be achieved through Luminex and Wizz Cash platforms. The latter also supports one-step transfer of UTXOs to different wallets. The tutorial steps can be found here. The following image shows the page of the Luminex platform, and the tutorial steps are as follows:
Connect the wallet in the upper right corner.
Fill in the amount to be allocated for each UTXO and the number of UTXOs according to your needs. The recommended allocation ratio can be found in this tweet.
Choose the transaction fee.
Click “Confirm” and sign to complete.
Related reports:
Runes frenzy sparks trading craze! Bitcoin transaction fees triple, surpassing Ethereum.
Founder of Ordinals makes a bold statement: Runes’ market value in the first month after launch will exceed $1 billion, or he will commit suicide.
Bitcoin rune stone Runestone breaks through the floor price of 0.07 BTC! Surpasses BAYC to become the second-largest NFT by market value.
The next wealth explosion? Bitcoin rune stone Runestone: will distribute three meme coins to holders, airdrop to start this month.