Is there any hope for Rune?

Ordinals is dead, this is one of the most popular memes of Ordinals. Since the introduction of runes, this meme has evolved into Runes is dead and the famous "Casey harakiri".

Since its launch, the performance of runes has always been less than satisfactory. Currently, the total market value of runes will remain above $1 billion. This is the famous "Casey harakiri line". We are back to the old place. The total trading volume of the rune market has been a pitiful $2 million or even lower in the past 5 days. Due to restrictions on ticker naming, a total of only about 87,500 rune tokens have been "etched (deployed)" since the launch in late April.

In contrast, more than 640,000 meme tokens have been deployed on Solana since April 1st of this year. Not to mention the trading volume, the top 30 meme tokens in Solana's past 24-hour trading volume can single out the entire Runes.

The summer solstice has passed, but the "Runes Summer" called by foreigners has not come yet.

In the eyes of many Chinese degens, Runes is simply a typical "CJB"-isn't it said that foreigners have a consensus? Aren't Chinese and foreigners not taking over each other? Foreigners are just thundering without rain, and they are the first to pull down...

In fact, I think this statement has a cognitive trap. Runes are indeed a consensus among foreigners at the Ordinals FT protocol level, but the Ordinals circle itself is very small, and if it is further subdivided into the group of foreign rune players, it is even smaller. In comparison, in last year's inscription craze, almost all players in the Chinese circle participated, and the Chinese circle has truly experienced it and reached a consensus-the inscription track can make money.

This is actually a one-sided confrontation, with the majority of Chinese degens VS the minority of foreign degens.

Runes can’t take off, on the one hand because the current market has entered a relatively flat or even sluggish stage, and on the other hand because the Bitcoin ecosystem, or the Ordinals ecosystem and even the Rune ecosystem, is still a small circle in the entire Crypto circle.

The total number of Rune Holders is less than 730,000, and only a little over 480,000 have played Runes. Excluding the situation where one person controls multiple addresses, the actual number of independent players is even more pitiful

Runes are not short of good, sexy meme tokens. EPIC•EPIC•EPIC•EPIC, which just completed its airdrop, can be called the Bitcoin version of $PEOPLE. Many Ordinals projects, communities and even individuals, led by the Blob team, raised 33.3 Bitcoins to bid for the fourth "Epic Satoshi" produced in this year's halving. After "etching (deploying)" this rune on it, it was airdropped to over 90,000 addresses for free.

This story of gathering the power of the ecosystem and giving back to the ecosystem is sexy enough. However, the cognitive threshold also exists objectively. Bitcoin has been regarded as a "currency" or "virtual gold" for so many years. Since the birth of Ordinals, there have been constant controversies surrounding the Ordinals ecosystem. At the same time, many Crypto players still have the impression of Bitcoin as a "currency" - Bitcoin? Oh, yes, it's expensive. If you can't make a fortune by investing in Bitcoin, I won't play it.

The existence of this impression has led to the spread of the story that a "satoshi", the smallest unit of Bitcoin, was bought by a group of Bitcoin ecological believers at the price of 33.3 Bitcoins. This story needs to actively break the circle in order to be heard by more people. Many people first do not know what "rare satoshis" are, and secondly, they may be confused after hearing this story and cannot appreciate the charm of this story.

I must say that no cryptocurrency can have such cultural attributes. We cannot see that a certain ETH on Ethereum has a value 3.33 billion times greater than its own. What's more, there is no precedent for buying a "rare satoshi" with 33.3 Bitcoins. This means that a group of fanatical explorers of Bitcoin culture are using 33.3 Bitcoins to seek an answer-if 33.3 Bitcoins equal to 1 Satoshi proves the cultural value of Bitcoin, then can these 33.3 Bitcoins create greater value?

Previously, the BRC-20 version of $PUPS was bridged to Solana and caused a surge and sensation, which was a very good start. After $PUPS, I observed that the communication between the Solana ecosystem and the Ordinals ecosystem became much closer. The most direct feeling is that the two NFT series of Bitcoin Puppets and OMB have many buyers from Solana.

Pulling the market, or the surge in prices, can certainly bring a lot of attention and new users to an ecosystem in the short term, but in order to keep them, this ecosystem must be infectious, have Vibe, and have its own moving stories and even culture. After the birth of Ordinals, Bitcoin has gradually developed from a "value medium" itself to a "cultural medium". In other words, Bitcoin itself is a kind of culture. It has stood firm for so many years, but has never relied on various application narratives until today, which has proved that it is the currency of our generation and the accumulation of a generation's beliefs.

What does Rune need to grow? First of all, I think we need a bridge from Rune to other chains. RuneMine, Beyond and MultiBit are all building such infrastructure. I think the day when we have a Rune bridge is not far away.

Liquidity is secondary in my opinion. What is more important is to bring the story of Rune and Ordinals ecology to users of other chains, so that they can see that Bitcoin has excellent native memes and moving native stories, so that everyone can update their impression of Bitcoin. Just as young people rarely buy gold but speculate on shoes, game accessories, and NFTs, Bitcoin is also young now.

We need a renaissance for Bitcoin. We need to challenge the public's old impression of Bitcoin and let more people begin to appreciate the cultural diversity of Bitcoin.

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