Real Opportunity for Runes only Comes After the Initial Hype

Reported by Cointelegrap, Bitcoin Runes, a new protocol for issuing fungible tokens on the Bitcoin network, is set to go live with the Bitcoin halving later this week.

Yet, the real market opportunity for Runes may only come months after the first wave of investor hype subsides, according to the pseudonymous decentralized finance (DeFi) researcher Ignas, who wrote in an April 17 X post:

“Runestone, RSIC, and PUPS are already pumping, promising holders shiny new Rune token airdrops. And FOMO threads keep coming. But, like the NFT frenzy post-JPEG reveal, the market could soon cool off.”

Rune floor prices could see a significant drop, mainly because they don’t immediately improve the trading experience of BRC-20 tokens and because small traders may be priced out of the increasing Bitcoin transaction fees, according to the pseudonymous researcher.

Runes and BRC-20 tokens are both new fungible token standards aiming to create more utility for Bitcoin in a new paradigm known as Bitcoin decentralized finance (DeFi), or BTCFi for short.

Ignas expects hundreds of Runes to launch on the market, diluting trader attention and inflows into particular tokens.

Paired with the lack of initial utility around Runes, these aspects will make them akin to memecoin trading, according to the pseudonymous researcher, who wrote:

“Finally, utility-wise runes will trade as memecoins like BRC20s. At least at first, so the excitement of ‘new’ will fade away. Especially if no rune token manages to sustain the pump and degens lose money.”

Despite the bearish short-term outlook, Ignas noted that he is bullish on Runes in the long term: “If I’m right the real opportunity comes after the hype cools down post the Rune protocol launch.”