We provide cutting-edge research so you can achieve alpha in the market!
Subscribe to Alpha Reports for exclusive reports and crucial insights on airdrops, NFTs, and more to elevate your investment strategy!
Unveiling Decrypt’s Hub for Art, Fashion, and Entertainment: SCENE
Explore SCENE to uncover the latest trends in the digital landscape.
The recent introduction of Runes is set to revolutionize the fungible digital asset space for Bitcoin, potentially bridging the gap with leading blockchains like Ethereum and Solana. According to a fresh report from investment firm Franklin Templeton Digital Assets, Runes could play a pivotal role in boosting Bitcoin’s market presence in the fungible token space.
“While Bitcoin currently trails behind ETH and SOL in terms of fungible market cap, the launch of the more efficient Runes token standard positions Bitcoin to make significant strides in narrowing this gap,” stated the investment firm.
Introducing Runes – Bitcoin’s New Fungible Token Standard pic.twitter.com/0VmlFbyKPc
— Franklin Templeton Digital Assets (@FTI_DA) April 15, 2024
Expressing optimism towards Runes, Leonidas from Runestone noted, “With assets under management totaling 1.4 trillion, Franklin Templeton’s endorsement of Runes indicates a promising future trajectory for this new standard.”
Although the BRC-20 standard has played a crucial role in enabling fungible tokens on Bitcoin, the Franklin Templeton report highlighted concerns over UTXO bloat caused by the standard’s burn and minting process. This phenomenon leads to fragmented Bitcoin outputs that inflate the network and result in higher transaction fees.
As the Bitcoin halving draws near, BRC-20 tokens have experienced a downturn, with tokens like Ordi plummeting 40% in the past week. This trend may be linked to the upcoming launch of Runes, as per insights from blockchain intelligence firm LunarCrush.
According to LunarCrush’s CEO Joe Vezzani, the shift in sentiment towards Runes may be impacting the performance of BRC-20 tokens negatively. Vezzani noted, “There seems to be a growing preference for Runes, potentially overshadowing BRC-20 tokens in terms of market sentiment.”
Franklin Templeton Digital Assets emphasized the advantages of the Runes protocol, including the elimination of junk UTXOs, independence from off-chain data, no additional token requirements, increased privacy, and compatibility with the Bitcoin Lightning Network.
Besides Runes, Franklin Templeton has been closely monitoring emerging digital assets such as Ordinals, which have spurred a resurgence in Bitcoin activity. Notable projects like NodeMonkes, Runestone, Bitcoin Puppets, Ordinal Maxi Biz, and Bitmap have collectively amassed a market capitalization of $1.11 billion.
Reflecting on the recent surge in Bitcoin innovation, Franklin Templeton highlighted the role of innovations like Bitcoin NFTs (Ordinals), new fungible token standards such as BRC-20 and Runes, Bitcoin Layer 2 solutions, and other DeFi primitives in driving positive momentum within the ecosystem.
In a separate report, Franklin Templeton projected that the global crypto user base will surpass 1.2 billion by 2025, underscoring the growing mainstream adoption of digital assets.
