Original Title: A New Bitcoin Metaprotocol Emerges: Alkanes

Original Author: AJC@AvgJoesCrypto@MessariCrypto Head of Research

Translation by: BitRay (Ray.bit) @bitlaser_btc

I am BitRay (Ray.bit), a man who embodies both passion for Bitcoin and technical insight. X (Twitter): https://x.com/bitlaser_btc

Messari, one of the most authoritative and professional research institutions in Web3 @MessariCrypto, has analyzed the Alkanes protocol and expressed a very optimistic view that the Bitcoin ecosystem will enter a period of explosive growth in the second half of 2025.

A metaprotocol is a secondary protocol built on top of Bitcoin, which embeds and interprets custom data within Bitcoin transactions to achieve additional functionalities and uses that are not natively supported by the Bitcoin network. So far, Ordinals and Runes are the most prominent examples, facilitating the issuance of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and fungible tokens on Bitcoin. However, a significant limitation of these metaprotocols is that they primarily support token issuance and basic peer-to-peer transfers, with limited functionality in broader programmability. This lack of functional depth has led to stagnation in adoption and innovation after the initial hype phase.

Alkanes is a new metaprotocol developed by @oylwallet that aims to address the shortcomings of Ordinals and Runes by introducing a complete smart contract environment based on WASM. Theoretically, Alkanes can directly enable decentralized applications on the Bitcoin layer, such as automated market maker (AMM) DEXs, lending protocols, derivatives, yield aggregators, and more.

Alkanes was first launched in January 2025, but it only began to gain attention in March. In the following three months, transactions interacting with the Alkanes protocol consumed a total of 11.5 BTC in gas fees. So far, most of the activity has been concentrated in the following areas:

• Tokens created using the Alkanes Token Standard, such as $DIESEL and $METHANE (@MethaneFund).

• NFTs created using the Orbitals standard, such as @AlkanePandas and @OylyOnAlkanes.

• ClockInSystem, a smart contract developed by @jin_maa that allows users to "check in" and include transactions in "special blocks" that occur daily. Users whose transactions are successfully included will increase their "check-in" count and improve their ranking on the leaderboard.

In comparison, the demand for Alkanes is higher than that for Ordinals (excluding BRC-20 tokens), which generated 6.2 BTC in transaction fees during the same period, while Runes (41.7 BTC) and BRC-20 tokens (35.2 BTC) had slightly lower demand. Most of the functionalities currently offered by Alkanes are similar to those of Runes and Ordinals. Most transactions currently occur on @idclub_ord, a PSBT-based Alkanes trading platform. In other words, the asset trading method based on Alkanes is roughly the same as that of Runes and Ordinals.

However, once the OYL AMM goes live next year, Alkanes will significantly enhance the user experience of existing metaprotocols. Although current trading activity still relies on PSBT-based markets like iDclub, the launch of a native AMM DEX will mark a significant shift. Bitcoin-based assets will be traded for the first time through smart contract-driven liquidity pools, eliminating the friction of manual order matching and streamlining transactions. In this sense, Alkanes has the potential to bridge the user experience gap between Bitcoin and modern smart contract ecosystems, positioning itself as a foundational layer for more expressive and DeFi-native activities on Bitcoin.

Essentially, Alkanes represents the next evolutionary stage of Bitcoin metaprotocols, shifting the narrative from static token issuance to dynamic application deployment. By enabling smart contracts directly on Bitcoin, it opens the door for decentralized applications such as automated market makers (AMMs), lending markets, and NFT platforms. With early signs of adoption and a developing ecosystem, Alkanes has the potential to become the foundational layer for more expressive and composable Bitcoin-native applications.

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