Original author: Jaleel
原文来源:BlockBeats
It's hard to imagine an ecosystem that hasn't even launched its mainnet with nearly $1 billion in assets and more than 20 infrastructure platforms.
Since the official version of the Runes protocol has not yet been released, there are currently no official Runes runes on the market, and many projects still exist in the form of Bitcoin NFTs. With the final launch of the Runes protocol, it is expected that these projects will officially join the Runes ecosystem by converting them into official runes in the form of airdrops or 1:1s.
Among them, the project with the highest market capitalization is Runestone, which has a market capitalization of up to $640 million, and the floor price soared to 0.074 BTC at one point, surpassing BAYC to become the second largest project in the NFT market. In addition, early users who participated in the pre-mining of the Bitcoin Runes token have already made significant gains. RSIC's buying price on the over-the-counter OTC platform whales.market is mainly concentrated at 0.01u, corresponding to a total market cap of $210 million. Before the halving, early adopters could easily earn up to $10,000.
It is no exaggeration to say that no other Bitcoin ecosystem protocol is currently more popular than Runes. BlockBeats has found that in addition to pre-sold Runes mining projects like Runestone and RSIC, the biggest driver of the Runes ecosystem is undoubtedly its robust infrastructure.
More than 20 infrastructures and leaps out
In the Bitcoin ecosystem, especially in the early stages of "nuggets", having a Bitcoin full node often means that you can greatly increase your earning potential. However, for most ordinary users who only "drink soup", the cost of building a full node is too high and the operation is complicated, so many people prefer to use the services of a third-party platform, and the functions are sufficient.
During the boom of the Ordinals protocol, the minting platforms in the market were mainly concentrated in a few such as UniSat and OKX Web3 wallets, and at most there were only five or six. According to BlockBeats' statistics and supplementary information from the community, nearly 20 infrastructure platforms that provide services such as minting and trading have emerged in the Runes protocol, which has not yet been launched on the mainnet. Among these many casting platforms, there are many new faces and old players in the industry.
图源：Doggfather
OKX 整装待发,Unisat 虽迟但到
Since March last year, the rapid development of the Bitcoin ecosystem has led to the emergence of billions of dollars in assets and the establishment of more than 20 infrastructure platforms. Against this backdrop, OKX and UniSat have emerged as key players, and their dynamics and impact in the market are worth discussing.
From responding quickly to market changes to implementing strategic deployments, it only took a week or two for OKX to decide to join the Bitcoin ecosystem. After months of preparation and accumulation, OKX has found a breakthrough for growth in this new track. As the Bitcoin ecosystem continues to heat up, OKX has become the "biggest winner" in this wave of craze with its smooth wallet products.
Right now, when people in the community think of the CEX trading platform and the Bitcoin ecosystem, OKX is the first thing that comes to mind. From Ordinals to BRC20, to ARC20 and now the Runes protocol, OKX's Web3 wallet has always been one of the first platforms to offer support.
According to Jason Wang, the head of OKX's Web3 wallet, the entire team was excited about the smooth development and testing process of Runes and the significant improvements in security and service stability. They have been researching and preparing Runes for more than half a year, and now they can finally let users actually experience the charm of Runes.
Bitcoin ecology science blogger Bitterry also revealed that during the contact with OKX Web3, I could feel their nervousness and excitement in the development process of Runes.
On the other hand, UniSat, although one of the earliest infrastructures in the Bitcoin ecosystem, is slightly slower to respond to the Runes protocol. After the release of BRC-20, many traditional players dismissed this "rough imitation of ERC-20" when the Bitcoin ecosystem first "emerged" last year. UniSat was the first platform to integrate and integrate BRC-20 on a large scale, capturing the majority of the market before OKX's entry.
While the Runes Protocol could have been UniSat's home turf, they appeared to be belated, only announcing their support for Runes on April 5, with plans to launch the Runes inscribed service and trading marketplace in mid-April.
As you can see, UniSat's focus has been on Ordinals, or rather Brc20, since the beginning of this year, from the Ordinals Jubilee to the development of cursed inscriptions, and then to the most influential support for 5-byte BRC20 recently, which seems to be intended to help reduce the impact of the Runes protocol on Brc20.
However, UniSat arrived late. At present, it said on social platforms that it has supported Runes' testnet. In addition, Runes' UniSat OpenAPI is now available and features include: retrieving information for a particular Runes; List the holders of a particular Runes; List Runes on a specific address; Access the full stream of events related to Runes.
"Re-employment" of Familiar Faces
NFTGo was initially positioned as an NFT aggregation platform that provided market data analysis and trading capabilities. It is equipped with a range of powerful tools and features, including market analysis, real-time listings, scarcity assessments, whale tracking, watchlists, auction calendars, and transaction aggregators, among others, to help users discover, trade, and manage NFT assets.
Founded in 2021, NFTGo is not just a one-stop NFT data analysis platform, it also provides users with a variety of NFT solutions including data analysis, transaction aggregation, and asset management, while launching a data API and an aggregator API. In April last year, NFTGo closed a $4 million strategic funding round with additional investment from Qiming Venture Partners and Hash Global, with new investors including 500 Global, Skyland Ventures, and personal investments from Fosun Group co-founder Liang Xinjun and a former Binance executive.
Recently, NFTGo founder Lowes announced on social media that they have not only launched the NFT project RuneGo, but are also actively integrating into the Runes ecosystem to develop new features related to it. This includes full tracking of Rune assets and smart wallets, similar to the tools they have previously developed for NFTGo, as well as low-friction trading and analysis that provides rune assets, user-friendly minting tools, and more. It is reported that RuneGo holders will enjoy additional benefits.
In addition, it is also worth mentioning GeniiData, a platform focused on cross-chain data analytics and API factories, featuring high performance, data reliability, and extensive coverage. It provides personal data studios with professional tools to discover, verify, and build Web3 solutions through blockchain analytics. For businesses, GeniiData is an incubator for decentralized applications, providing access to a comprehensive on-chain data API.
Since the rise of the Bitcoin ecosystem, there have been very few platforms that have access to data on the Bitcoin chain, and GeniiData has done this more frequently. Price and market data for BRC-20 tokens are often available through GeniiData, including capturing real-time minting of popular inscriptions and NFTs (e.g., Ordinals heatmaps, wallet statistics), and it is also the first native inscription data platform to provide a dedicated viewing page for Merlin Chain.
Later, as the team grew, GeniiData naturally launched the minting function and more minting projects. Recently, GeniiData also completed the minting of its own platform NFT "Feeling Good" project, similar to RuneGo, users who own "Feeling Good" NFTs will enjoy fee discounts in the future minting process.
值得一提的是，据比特里里的推文透露，GeniiData 在前段时间给 Casey 反馈了一个重大 bug。 对于这个 bug 的严重性，Casey 原话是「This would have been pretty devastating if it hadn't been fixed before launch.」（如果在 Runes 上线前没有被修复，这将是个毁灭性的问题）。
In a conversation with BlockBeats, Biteri also mentioned that "GeniiData has done a lot of research on Runes, and they should be quite thorough in this area of technology. 」
Bot "Adaptable"
In the recent warm-up process of the minting platform market, BlockBeats can also see some new faces in the market, such as bot tools, which is the first time that bots have appeared in the Bitcoin ecosystem, and often appear in the context of "as a substitute solution when the minting platform web page crashes".
We can see that many people are still full of expectations for bots, but the acceptance of the community is uneven, and not all community members buy it. Since the Bitcoin network does not have the same transaction form as the EVM, the possibility of a vulnerability in the code design is unproven. Some community members bluntly said that "the bot on Bitcoin is a pseudo demand" and "after the Runes mainnet is launched, the probability of the webpage crash of the minting platform is unlikely." 」
After asking Bitrily about popular science, BlockBeats found that during some recent NFT rush sales, the webpage crashed mainly because some activities do not require high gas fees, and only need to click to submit an order and pay a small amount of gas to successfully snap up, which is called "locking orders". When the event is free or low-cost, many studios deploy scripts to automate participation, resulting in instantaneous high traffic and clicks, in which case the web page may crash.
However, in the Runes ecosystem, all orders are submitted to the mempool, sorted and confirmed according to the gas fee paid. Transactions with high gas fees will be confirmed first, while transactions with low gas fees may be deferred to a later block, similar to the mechanism of snapping up BRC-20.
"Gas rates can be high after mainnet goes live, but even under this pressure, the nodes that process and broadcast transactions are mainly affected, such as memspace and quicknode, and the likelihood of a front-end web page crash is very small. From Bitriri's past experience, she made some conclusions.
In this context, the construction of Bot in the Bitcoin ecosystem may be hindered and appear to be a little "unsuitable", but as for the follow-up development, BlockBeats will continue to observe and report.
The game of volume GAS is about to begin
After BlockBeats took a closer look at the Runes-related infrastructure currently on the market, it was found that these platforms tend to be a one-stop-shop.
Users can easily perform a variety of operations throughout the Runes ecosystem, from minting to querying progress, counting transaction amounts, to tracking wallets and participating in trading markets, all of which complement each other at the code design level. This one-stop-shop trend not only provides great convenience to users, but also improves the efficiency and user engagement of the entire ecosystem. As these infrastructures continue to improve and optimize, we expect the Runes ecosystem to attract more participants.
In addition, looking at the current market dynamics, we can see that infrastructure platforms are warming up the market by offering NFTs to attract and retain the first wave of users. Not only are these early users the core target customers for the platform's future development, but these NFTs are also designed as a special credential that symbolizes their early support and trust in the platform. This strategy not only helps build user loyalty, but also provides a way for the platform to interact directly with its target customer base.
With so many foundry platforms on the market, Biteri recommended some of the foundry platforms she likes for BlockBeats: "GeniiData, UniSat, iDclub, and OKX on the first floor, and Unicross on the second tier." 」
As for which foundry platform will have the largest market share in the end, "The real casting experience, interaction, service fee cost, etc., of each company, still have to be halved on the day when you see the official product to know." Now it's all a matter of speculation based on previous experience and publicly available information, and it's not very accurate," Bitterry told BlockBeats.
After all, the user's body is the most honest.