Author: flowie, ChainCatcher
Editor: Marco, ChainCatcher
On April 20th, the day of Bitcoin's halving, Runes almost single-handedly caused congestion on the Bitcoin network, driving Bitcoin transaction fees to nearly $300.
This unexpected turn of events resulted in massive income for miners who were originally under pressure due to the halving. According to Glassnode data, on the day of the halving, Bitcoin miners' income reached $1.067 billion, setting a new historical high, with over 75% coming from network transaction fees.
However, the fervor surrounding Runes has left the cryptocurrency community investors with mixed feelings. On one hand, Runes indeed has the potential to continue the development trend of inscriptions, creating new wealth codes for participants. But the intense start of Runes, compared to inscriptions, has also burdened many early users with high initial costs, leading to potential losses.
In the Runes ecosystem, the infrastructure that currently provides Runes' initial offerings and trading for participants may be the biggest winners. Especially for players like OKX and UniSat, who have been early participants in the Bitcoin ecosystem construction, they have once again firmly seized the new round of dividends in the Bitcoin ecosystem.
Is the Battle of Runes More Intense Than Inscriptions?
In March 2023, the anonymous developer domo introduced the experimental standard protocol BRC20 and the ORDI token, but it took two months for the BRC20 token to experience its first outbreak.
On May 8, 2023, the Bitcoin network stopped producing blocks for 1 hour due to congestion, and the gas fees for each transaction on the chain once surged to $30. The leading token of BRC20, ORDI, also broke through $10 in early May, with a market value exceeding $200 million.
More than a year after the first outbreak of BRC20, Runes, proposed as an alternative to BRC20 by Casey, the founder of Ordinals, caused severe congestion on the Bitcoin network as soon as it went online after much preparation by various forces. The gas fees for each transaction on the chain once approached $300, which is ten times higher than the peak trading period of BRC20.
Although Runes officially started its initial offering only 4 days ago, data from the OKX Web3 Runes section shows that over 8,000 Runes have been issued. Based on the 24-hour trading volume, there are already 38 relatively popular Runes.
Among them, on April 24th, the Rune with the highest 24-hour trading volume was Z•Z•Z•Z•Z•FEHU•Z•Z•Z•Z•Z, with a market value exceeding $2 billion. The second highest 24-hour trading volume Rune was RSIC•GENESIS•RUNE, with a market value exceeding $2.1 billion, surpassing the $200 million market value of ORDI after its first breakout in May last year.
The third highest 24-hour trading volume Rune is the namesake of Satoshi Nakamoto, SATOSHI•NAKAMOTO, which was once the most held and traded Rune in the early stages of the initial offering. Its current market value has exceeded $60 million.
In terms of the number of holders, the four Runes with the most holders, RSIC•GENESIS•RUNE, SATOSHI•NAKAMOTO, Z•Z•Z•Z•Z•FEHU•Z•Z•Z•Z•Z, and BITCOIN•PEPE•MATRIX, have all exceeded 16,000.
Although from the perspective of Bitcoin transaction network fees, the market value of popular Runes, and other data, the initial fervor of Runes seems to surpass the first stage of the outbreak of BRC20.
However, for the cryptocurrency community users, the cooling of Runes seems to be more rapid than BRC20, as there is not much difference between Runes and BRC20 in terms of narrative and initial offering gameplay. Data from the OKX Web3 Runes section shows that nearly 90% of the projects among the 38 popular Runes have experienced a drop in floor price in the past 24 hours.
The profit effect of Runes at the moment also seems to be inferior to BRC20. When BRC20 went online, due to the novelty of the concept, there were not many participants, and many players acquired a large number of chips at a low price, gaining returns of hundreds or thousands of times.
In contrast, the high gas fees during the initial offering of Runes made it costly for participants to join. According to a poll by Twitter user @Fuckxegg, the main earners at the moment are the holders of pre-Rune NFTs, who are earning income through airdrops from the project team. Among the participants in the initial offering, the vast majority are likely facing losses.
Which Players Dominate the Trading in the Runes Infrastructure?
Whether it's the popularity of BRC20 or Runes, selling shovels is more stable for reaping the dividends of the Bitcoin ecosystem than participating in the gold rush.
In the Runes ecosystem, the infrastructure that provides initial offerings and trading for Runes is the most intense race. Before Runes went online, at least 20 or more trading platforms announced support for Runes' initial offerings and trading.
One type is represented by trading markets such as OKX, UniSat, and Magic Eden, while another type is represented by Bitcoin ecosystem wallets, casting, and analysis tools platforms such as Xverse, Geniidata, and Runealpha. In addition, there are launch or mint pads platforms such as Ordinalsbot and Runespad.
However, in reality, after Runes went online, the number of platforms that could launch initial offerings and trading for Runes was not that many. Judging from the situation of initial offerings and trading on the day of the halving, most participants still chose platforms such as OKX, UniSat, Geniidata, and Runealpha, which had already launched Runes sections.
And most of the platforms for initial offerings and trading of Runes support the OKX Web3 wallet. As one of the earliest players in the Bitcoin ecosystem, OKX Web3 wallet remains an important leader in this wave of Runes market.
This is thanks to OKX's sensitivity in capturing market hotspots. After Casey, the founder of Ordinals, first proposed the concept of Runes in September 2023, the OKX Web3 wallet team immediately got involved.
According to Jason Wang, the person in charge of the OKX Web3 wallet, they spent more than half a year researching and preparing for Runes on the X platform.
As a result, the development and launch of Runes went very smoothly, with significant improvements in security and service stability. Even before Runes went online, pre-Rune NFT projects quickly gained popularity, and OKX's market quickly responded, becoming an important trading market for pre-Rune NFT projects.
In addition to being very sensitive to market hotspots, OKX also focuses on user experience. Before Runes went online, the OKX community released multiple articles and videos about Runes, as well as detailed tutorials for Runes' initial offerings, allowing users to prepare early.
After the first Rune was born, OKX launched the initial offering and trading platform for Runes for users as soon as possible, providing casting and trading analysis information, and there were no bugs after the launch, running very smoothly.
It is worth mentioning that due to the nature of Runes, the initial offering process generally requires participants to split UTXOs in advance for higher efficiency. However, because this process involves too many technical concepts, making it difficult for many non-technical users to get started, OKX provides the function of automatic UTXO splitting, reducing the threshold for user participation.
Therefore, participants in Runes can complete the entire process of pre-Rune NFT appearance, initial offering after Runes went online, and secondary trading in a one-stop manner in the OKX Web3 wallet.
Bitcoin Ecosystem Dividends Erupt, OKX May Be the Biggest Winner
In the fiercely competitive wallet arena, the OKX Web3 wallet has taken the lead in seizing the Bitcoin ecosystem and quickly achieved overtaking.
After the first outbreak of BRC20 in May last year, the infrastructure supporting BRC20 inscriptions and trading was very scarce, and the user participation threshold was very high. The OKX Web3 wallet quickly announced its integration with the Oridinals market, allowing users to transfer, trade, and inscribe BRC-20 and BTC NFTs in a one-stop manner through the OKX Web3 wallet's Oridinals market, with lower participation thresholds in the Bitcoin ecosystem.
The OKX Web3 wallet, which captured user demand, quickly expanded its market share. According to Dune Analytics data, since the OKX Web3 wallet's NFT platform integrated with the Oridinals market in May last year, its market share in the Oridinals market has continuously increased from an initial 0.3%.
With the second outbreak of the Bitcoin ecosystem in November last year, OKX's market share in the Oridinals market mostly remained above 80%. On November 9th, the daily trading market share of Ordinals on OKX once exceeded 90%, almost monopolizing the Bitcoin Ordinals ecosystem.
Through the Web3 wallet and the Bitcoin ecosystem, OKX quickly opened up a second growth curve, stimulating many CEXs to integrate Web3 wallets and the Bitcoin ecosystem.
In November last year, Binance and Bitget successively announced the integration of Web3 wallets, and gate.io also released its self-developed Web3 wallet.
However, due to OKX's several months of first-mover advantage, the subsequent entry of CEXs into Web3 wallet functionality was somewhat lacking, and progress was slower. In the Bitcoin ecosystem, almost only the OKX Web3 wallet has continued to closely follow the market and rapidly meet user needs.
After Ordinals, a large number of derivative protocols have emerged in the Bitcoin ecosystem. OKX has also participated in research and provided users with the most valuable trading markets in the Bitcoin ecosystem. Currently, the OKX Web3 wallet supports the Ordinals, Atomicals, and the recently popular Runes markets. With each rotation of the Bitcoin ecosystem, the OKX Web3 wallet is the main battlefield for users to participate in casting or trading.
Currently, the OKX Web3 wallet has successfully accumulated a large number of on-chain users through the Bitcoin ecosystem. It is expected that in the current bull market, the Bitcoin ecosystem, as one of the most mainstream narratives, will continue to bring traffic dividends to OKX.
In the long run, the successful experience of the OKX Web3 wallet in the Bitcoin ecosystem may provide a reference or even a replicable methodology for OKX's future conquest of other important narratives.
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