Bitcoin Rune Protocol Runes is about to go live, and in the past two days, many Rune-related projects on Ethereum have emerged like mushrooms. Although their descriptions are rough, it doesn’t affect the fact that these tokens have increased by tens of times since their launch.
The Bitcoin halving is only one day away, and the Runes mainnet is about to go live. Are you still analyzing what opportunities to seize? In the past few hours, the powerful projects on Ethereum have already made a lot of money.
In the past two days, many Rune-related projects on Ethereum have emerged like mushrooms. Although their descriptions are rough and somewhat chaotic, it doesn’t affect the fact that these tokens have increased by tens of times since their launch. Interestingly, in general, the time it takes for new projects based on the Runes concept to achieve such high returns has been reduced from one week to just a few hours.
The Bitcoin L2 RUNIC, built around Runes, went live on March 13th. At that time, the popularity of the Runes protocol was not high enough, and RUNIC quickly fell by over 90% one day after going live. However, as the Runes protocol gradually attracted community attention in the past two weeks, RUNIC also “came back to life” with a 6x increase in five days.
As of now, RUNIC’s official Twitter account has less than 5000 followers, which is quite low for a serious project, but it seems to be sufficient for now.
Another frequent visitor to the Ethereum hot list recently, RunesBridge RB, has increased by over 40x since its launch 10 days ago, making it one of the “longer-lasting” projects in the Runes protocol. As the name suggests, RunesBridge aims to build a bridge for asset transfer between the Bitcoin network and the EVME network through the Runes protocol. In addition to being a bridge, RunesBridge also functions as a Rune Lunchpad platform.
Compared to other projects, RunesBridge is more “serious” in its performance. It launched its testnet yesterday, allowing users to experience the services provided by RunesBridge by receiving test coins. Whether these features actually have utility in the Runes ecosystem or not, at least for retail investors, such “services” give them more confidence in RB.
On April 15th, the DeFi project Runes₲lyphs, which provides staking services on the Runes protocol, went live with its token RG. It achieved over 10x growth within the first two hours of launch and then quickly dropped to near zero.
However, for retail investors looking for alpha coins related to the Runes concept, RG, which is close to zero and has a similar upward trend as RUNIC and RB, seems to be a good choice. After oscillating at low levels for three days, RG skyrocketed yesterday, with an increase of nearly 7x within the day.
Lucky winners quickly cashed out their profits. Although Runes₲lyphs is still running a promotional “Thread Contest” and has launched staking services, RG has already dropped by around 60% from its peak.
Yesterday’s lucky winners included early holders of RG and retail investors who paid attention to EtheRunes (ETR) at the right time. Like the other Rune tokens, ETR had a 20-30x increase within the first few hours of opening and then quickly dropped by over 90%. However, on April 18th, ETR experienced a resurgence, with a 536% increase within the day.
Although the Runes concept continues to grow, the lifespan of these tokens is only two days. The mentioned tokens achieved high returns within a short period of time but then experienced significant retracements. Today, a new concept token related to Runes has gone live.
RBot, which appeared at 7 a.m. on April 18th, had a 4x increase within the first half an hour of going live, but then dropped by over 75% in the following hour. Around 9 a.m., it reached its lowest price of $0.27. Generally, those who profit within the first half an hour of going live are usually trading bots or scientists. Based on the trends of previous tokens, RBot may receive attention from retail investors.
BitRunes token BRUNE, born at the same time as RBot this morning, climbed to the top of the Ethereum hot list at noon and currently has over 10x growth since its launch. BitRunes also seems to be a cross-chain bridge service based on Runes, but specific details are unknown. Its official Twitter account has only a few hundred followers and has only posted three tweets.
However, researcher DiTereh has already warned against buying high-risk trendy narratives. Using BRUNE as an example, he pointed out that most of the buyers at the beginning were trading sniper bots, and retail investors face a lot of selling pressure when buying, and the contract itself carries significant risks, such as developers not giving up control of the contract, the ability to suspend trading by modifying the contract, and modifying the taxes on buying and selling.
DiTereh’s findings can confirm the characteristics of the price action of these token projects. Most of them quickly skyrocketed to tens of times their value after going live, then quickly collapsed and dropped by 60%-80% within a few hours. This is followed by a “value discovery” process, which can last for a few days or a few hours, where retail investors pick up the tokens on their way to zero, causing the price to rise again, even surpassing previous highs.
The excitement of the chaotic market reminds us of the AI hype two months ago. In addition to established projects, many low-market-cap AI projects appeared in rapid succession and achieved tens of times growth in just two or three weeks, surpassing the growth rate of legitimate AI projects.
When Bittensor attracted community attention, new projects related to the Bittensor ecosystem were more attractive than TAO itself. Regardless of their feasibility, early holders could achieve high returns. At its peak, there were four or five new projects related to Bittensor appearing on the hot list within a week.
Contrary to the community’s expectations, after the narrative of new AI projects was exhausted, the funds did not shift to “more reliable” projects but withdrew directly. Recently, AI memes have all come to a zero end, and the exit strategies of the project teams vary.
The same logic seems to be playing out with Runes, and the pace is even faster. These two days are the peak of Rune concept projects. On April 18th, RUNIC increased by 150%, RB reached a peak increase of 463%, and ETR increased by 536% within a day. On April 19th, these tokens all experienced retracements of 40%-70%, while RBot and BRUNE were born and created new upward trends. Tomorrow, there may be new Rune concept tokens appearing on the hot list, but their lifespan may be even shorter.
Although Runes is considered the consensus wealth code during the Bitcoin halving, users who bought the new tokens in the past two days based on the profit logic of the initial Rune concept token RB may have experienced significant retracements. Depending on the timing of entry, they may even face the risk of being buried. In this “mutual willingness” narrative trading, who will be the ultimate winner?