Although on-chain indicators as of Monday showed no increase in the Runes protocol's on-chain metrics, these indicators typically follow social activity and narratives, with prices then leading.
Memecoins such as PUPS, DOG•GO•TO•THE•MOON, and BILLION•DOLLAR•CAT are becoming popular bets driving Bitcoin's growth.
The Runes protocol uses its UTXO model to directly create fungible tokens on Bitcoin, with its market cap now exceeding BRC-20.
Memecoins can serve as speculative assets when volatility is lower in other cryptocurrencies.
Bitcoin-based memecoins are favored by some cryptocurrency traders on X, becoming a beta bet on Bitcoin (BTC) as BTC surges to all-time highs, making this space a hot topic for retail traders.
CoinGecko data shows tokens like PUPS, DOG•GO•TO•THE•MOON (DOG), BILLION•DOLLAR•CAT (BDC), and MEME have risen over 35% in the past 24 hours, leading gains across all tracked categories. Smaller tokens like CYPHER•GENESIS (CYPHER) have risen over 77%.
Data shows the market cap of the Runes token supporting these assets has surpassed BRC-20 (another Bitcoin-based protocol) in the past 24 hours.
Driven by the election of former President Donald Trump, BTC has risen over 30% in the past 30 days, with his pro-crypto stance boosting sentiment and growth across the industry.
Runes was created in early 2024 to facilitate the creation and management of fungible tokens on Bitcoin. Runes allows users to create fungible tokens, which are interchangeable digital assets similar in function to Bitcoin itself or Ethereum's ERC-20 tokens.
These tokens leverage Bitcoin's Unspent Transaction Output (UTXO) model. Each UTXO can contain any number of various Runes, making token management more aligned with Bitcoin's native structure and potentially reducing network congestion from "dust" UTXOs of other token standards (like BRC-20).
However, as of Monday, data showed no increase in the Runes protocol's on-chain metrics. On-chain metrics typically follow social activity and narratives, with prices then leading.
Beta bets are a way to gain exposure to a network, ecosystem, or asset using related tokens. Since early 2023, memecoins have become the preferred beta asset for various ecosystems, such as Ethereum or Solana, helping drive their appeal to investors.
Interest in memecoins often stems from lower market volatility in more serious crypto domains (such as Layer 2 or storage) and the rising negative sentiment around tokens backed by venture capital funds - increasingly seen as overpriced and a poor bet for retail traders.
Focusing on meme coins to bet on growth is not unique to Bitcoin. As the SOL token of the Solana network took off, several Solana-based meme coin tokens skyrocketed from December 2023 to March - driving ecosystem growth and attention, while also boosting the mother ship's price.
