Bitcoin Runes Are Back? Meme Coin Surge Pushes Market Cap Over $2 Billion – Decrypt

For the first time ever, the collective market capitalization of tokens on the Bitcoin-based Runes protocol has eclipsed $2 billion, further upending the narrative that the novel ecosystem for meme coins built on the Bitcoin network is dead on arrival. 

At writing, tokens on Runes possess a collective value of $2.06 billion, according to Bitcoin data analytics platform GeniiData. Just last week, that figure crossed $1 billion for the first time. 

The surge in value appears largely attributable to one Runes token in particular, DOG•GO•TO•THE•MOON (aka DOG). DOG has surged over 90% in the last week, to a price that still remains a fraction of a penny. Its market capitalization now stands at a commanding $797 million—making it the ninth most valuable meme coin across all blockchains, according to CoinGecko.

Runes’ recent surge in value appears to be something of a blessing for Runes creator Casey Rordamor, who previously launched the NFT-like Bitcoin Ordinals inscription protocol last year.

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Prior to the debut of Runes alongside the Bitcoin halving on April 19, Rordamor tweeted—jokingly, we presume—that he would commit ritualistic suicide if Runes did not hit a $1 billion market cap within a month of launch. 

It would appear the Bitcoin developer got his wish—just barely. Runes broke a $1 billion total market cap just a day before Rordamor’s self-imposed deadline, according to GeniiData. Since then, the protocol has surged at a remarkable pace, more than doubling in value within a matter of days. 

The last few days have brought a particularly pronounced bump in Runes activity, with daily transaction volume on the protocol approaching $20 million on both Wednesday and Thursday for the first time since the week of Runes’ launch in April. 

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The surge comes just as many in the industry have written off Runes as a failure, given the sky-high expectations associated with the protocol’s seductive pitch of streamlining how meme coins—a red-hot asset category—can be created on top of the world’s dominant cryptocurrency. 

Prior to Runes’ apparent comeback in the last two weeks, transaction volume for the protocol plummeted over 90% after a short-lived blockbuster debut.

Edited by Andrew Hayward