Runes

Runes was created by Casey Rodarmor, the same author of the Ordinals protocol, but it is independent of Ordinals and of inscriptions, which makes it simpler and more efficient. It encodes the protocol data in an OP_RETURN output called a runestone, rather than inscribing data in the witness. Its three operations are etching (defining a rune with name, symbol, divisibility, supply and minting terms), minting and transfer. Balances are assigned to specific UTXOs, and spending the UTXO moves the tokens.

This matters because it is the canonical attempt by the author of Ordinals to offer a cleaner fungible-token standard than the experimental BRC-20, without smart contracts and respecting the UTXO model. Its UTXO-native design produces less UTXO junk than BRC-20, fitting Bitcoin's accounting mechanics more closely. For anyone studying how to issue digital assets, it illustrates what can and cannot be done on the base chain without touching consensus.

The example is exact. Runes launched at block 840,000, the same block as the fourth halving, on 20 April 2024 in UTC time. The first rune, number 0, was UNCOMMON•GOODS, hardcoded by Rodarmor into the protocol, which began its minting when the halving occurred and stays mintable for about four years. In its first weeks, Runes drove a substantial share of the network's transaction activity.