Imagine a memecoin onboarding millions of people to Bitcoin. Because the Runestones community wants to do exactly that.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fiat collapse narrative only resonates with a small portion of the population, but everybody loves a puppy in an orange hoodie,\u201d said LeonidasNFT<\/a>, the mastermind behind Runestones.<\/p>\n He recently launched the Runestones collection in a bid to reward Ordinals OGs \u2013 people who believed in the ecosystem during its first year of life.<\/p>\n In a highly anticipated<\/a> airdrop on March 15, more than 112,000 wallets began receiving their Runestones, which have been climbing the NFT rankings. The collection\u2019s market cap lies just shy<\/a> of $600 million, and Runestones have a floor price of 0.08 BTC on Magic Eden or $5,500 \u2013 up 400% since the airdrop.<\/p>\n The idea is to airdrop three memecoins to every Runestones holder, of which there are currently roughly 77,000, with the first being a dog in an orange hoodie. The memecoin will drop when Ordinals<\/a> creator Casey Rodarmor launches the Runes protocol, enabling a UTXO-based alternative to the BRC-20 token standard.<\/p>\n By assigning tokens to a specific UTXO, Runes allow for a more simple and efficient way to inscribe arbitrary data inscriptions onto Bitcoin\u2013incentivizing users to stop using the BRC-20 standard.<\/p>\n \u201cThe narrative is that Runestone holders will receive 3 Runes memecoins throughout the year,\u201d explained Jake Gallen<\/a>, who leads strategy for Emblem Vault, a cross-chain NFT protocol.<\/p>\n But Jake told The Defiant he doesn\u2019t think it stops there. \u201cWith 77K holders and a narrative around “free and fair” distribution, there’s a possibility other projects will also create claim portals or airdrop tokens to Runestone holders,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Gallen also pointed out how projects can onboard users easily through Runestones.<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s an easy way to get your token in the hands of 77K owners,\u201d he said. \u201cEven if they end up dumping the token, the 1% retention rate will get your project close to 1k active users or believers.\u201d<\/p>\n Ordinal inscriptions can be thought of as equivalent toNFTs<\/a>. They allow non-financial data, from JPEGS to text to videos, to be inscribed on the Bitcoin blockchain. Inscriptions are linked to an individual satoshi, the smallest denomination of Bitcoin.<\/p>\n Considering the size of the memecoin sector, making this a core part of Runestones could be a smart bet by Leonidas.<\/p>\n Memecoins have been booming, with the sector commanding $65 billion in market capitalization. Communities are also pushing the industry further into the mainstream, as seen by the DogWifHat community raising $700,000<\/a> to put the memecoin\u2019s image on the Las Vegas Sphere.<\/p>\n Solana has been enjoying most of the attention from degens interested in memecoins, but now many networks are catching up to its popularity.<\/p>\n Coinbase\u2019s Layer 2, Base, has been witnessing its own memecoin frenzy<\/a>, along with Blast. To the dismay of some, others like Fantom co-founder Andre Cronje are trying to create \u201csafe environments<\/a>\u201d for memecoins, although previous such attempts have proved unsuccessful.<\/p>\n Leonidas is building off Bitcoin\u2019s brand name.<\/p>\n![\"Future](\"https:\/\/thedefiant.io\/_next\/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2F6oftkxoa%2Fproduction%2F78e159526be7d9378558d3b25f9a8b6bd67e9d92-642x635.jpg&w=828&q=100\")
Memecoins Are The Narrative<\/h2>\n
Why Runestones?<\/h2>\n