Popular Science | Why are Bitcoin rune names so weird?

2024-04-25 16:30

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Original title: Why Are Bitcoin Rune Names So Weird? There's a Method to the Madness

Original author: Jason Nelson, Decrypt
Original translation: Vernacular Blockchain

The Bitcoin halving has passed, and in conjunction with this milestone, the new RunesToken protocol has officially gone live on the Bitcoin network. According to data from Luminex, the launch platform for Ordinals and Runes, the Runes protocol has created more than eight thousand "etchings" (the preferred term for the deployment of RunesToken) on the Bitcoin blockchain since its launch on April 20.

Among these new digital assets, a trend has quickly emerged for names with long and unusual formats. Browsing this emerging category on exchanges like Magic Eden, you can see tokens with tags like "SYMPATHETIC•PARAMUTUALISM" and "WANKO•MANKO•RUNES."

Runes' names are often displayed in all capital letters, which may seem a little strange, but the creators say there is a good reason. The Runes protocol has a minimum name length built into it to prevent so-called name squatting. Name squatting, domain squatting, or web squatting involves registering a name that is commonly recognized by others as a brand or trademark in order to profit from its recognized value.

However, the creators of Runes don't see a problem with this.

1. Why use such a long name?

"Brian Laughlan, co-founder of OrdinalsBot, told Decrypt that the name requirements are from longest to shortest. This rule, while a bit strange, also means that no one can register 'PEPSI' on day one." Every 17,500 blocks, the minimum number of letters will be reduced by one character, creating an ever-changing naming environment.

However, this restriction did not stop someone from creating a rune called THE•NEW•YORK•TIMES, despite having no apparent connection to the New York Times.

According to the Ordinal Theory Handbook, rune names must be between 1 and 28 characters. Although the current length restriction only allows the use of letters A to Z, names must be unique, regardless of spaces. This means that names like 'UNCOMMON•GOODS' and 'UNCOMMONGOODS' are considered the same. Furthermore, a rune cannot use the same sequence of letters as an existing rune, even if the spacing is different.

In an episode of the Hell Money Podcast, Bitcoin Ordinal developer Casey Rodarmor explained: "When you create a name for a rune, you reserve that name for it and set the properties of the rune. The first property a rune can have is its name. The name can be any combination of A to Z, presented in uppercase, and can be from 1 to 26 characters long."

2. Rune names cannot contain numbers

"We chose this rule for simplicity," he explained. "If numbers were allowed, it might be confusing because 0 and O are easily confused, or if Un1C0de characters were allowed, it would also cause confusion because rune names could contain special characters such as emojis."

"Rune names can also contain spacers, such as dots, which are placed between the letters in the name to help improve readability."

Rodarmor Giving an example: "If you have created a rune called GOODMORNING, like Good Morning, then someone else can't create GOOD and then add a separator and then MORNING," he explained. "The separator is set when the rune is created, and it doesn't change the name of the rune, ensuring that each rune name is unique."

3. Controversy about naming

Rodarmor recalled: "When I was designing the protocol, the idea of unique names caused some controversy. A lot of people didn't like the concept. Another alternative was to use incomprehensible, unreadable identifiers to identify runes, allowing rune names to be repeated."

In this setup, Rodarmor explained, "You can't say 'buy this rune' and say the name of the rune, you have to say 'buy this rune' and then give a string of nonsense characters."

When asked if it's OK to use popular names and brands as rune names, Rodarmor didn't mind.

He said: "Some people say this is not good, like Google wants to get the Google Rune, but can't because someone else has it. First of all, this is not the stock market - I hope one day... some crazy person gets the Google Rune and Google can't have it. I would like that."

He further pointed out: "If you really don't care about the name of the rune and just want to refer to it with a specific name, you can get a so-called unnamed rune, which will automatically generate a name. You can think of this as an implementation detail."

The document also explains: "Runes are created by carving. Carving creates a rune and sets its properties. Once set, these properties are immutable, even for the carver."

The Rune Protocol was announced by Rodarmor in September and is seen as a way to interchangeable tokens on the top blockchains by market capitalization. He pointed out that Runes are designed to solve multiple problems brought about by the BRC-20 token standard last year, such as wasted block space.

While some lay observers may think Runes and BRC-20 tokens are the same, Ken Liao, CEO of bitcoin wallet Xverse, said the distinction between them will become more apparent over time.

“Some people have been pointing out that Runes have the same issues as BRC-20 in terms of trading,” Liao told Decrypt. “But that’s mostly because we’re still pretty much in the day one phase right now, and most of the Rune trading markets are just copy-pasted directly from their BRC-20 integration. I think over time we’ll start to see improvements.”