Reviewing the runes, there is currently no heat, so it shouldn't cause any controversy. Let's just discuss it. The pricing given by the market to Runes is a 'tool for sending memecoins', but this may be the biggest misreading. Every design choice made by Casey Rodarmor - OP-RETURN instead of inscriptions, Cenotaph burn mechanism, UTXO binding, 6-confirmation anti-theft, name progressive unlocking - is all about the same thing: achieving the best within Bitcoin's constraint set, rather than attempting to break through constraints. This kind of restraint is much harder than 'making a big innovation'. Compared to BRC-20, Runes performs better or at least equal in terms of block space efficiency, UTXO set inflation, and index complexity. It's not 'better', it's a generational difference at the architecture level. BRC-20 engraves JSON in inscriptions and reconstructs the state by replaying it with an indexer, while Runes uses LEB128 compact encoding to directly bind UTXO. But Runes has an unsolvable structural weakness: the Bitcoin consensus layer does not understand it. The rune 'balance' only exists in the explanation of the ord indexer. The security of BTC depends on the computing power of the entire network, while the security of Runes depends on whether or not it is run correctly. Borrowing the data availability of Bitcoin, but not the consensus security. This is not a bug, it is by design - without making protocol level changes to Bitcoin, there is no solution. So looking back, the most important function of Runes may not be token issuance, but rather serving as a demand engine for the Bitcoin blockchain space. What will support the income of miners after halving? Service Charge. Who creates the demand for transaction fees? Token activity. Tokens can be reset to zero, but the economic model they prove will not disappear. Times make heroes, but Runes at least proves one thing: the block space of Bitcoin is something that people are willing to pay to use.