Author: Jessy, Jinse Finance
Recently, a project called Odin.fun has sparked a small-scale craze. This is a Runes protocol launch platform similar to Pump.fun. Its small-scale popularity has brought some heat to the long-dormant Bitcoin ecosystem. On March 7, community members reported that 74 bitcoins disappeared from the Odin.fun chain, or were subject to a hacker attack. Soon, the project's co-founder responded on X, saying there was an error in the hard deposit synchronization code, causing some users' balances to exceed the deposit amount. So the 74 BTC deposit transaction cannot be found on the chain, and the current user funds are safe.
When it comes to the relationship between public chains and token launch platforms, it is not difficult to think of Solana and Pump.fun, as well as Base and Viturals, etc. A hot token launch platform can bring a lot of traffic to the public chain it is on. For example, when Viturals was booming, the net capital inflow to Base exceeded Solana.
This is one of the reasons why token launch platforms are so popular. Unlike the token launch platforms on other public chains mentioned above, the token launch platforms on the Bitcoin ecosystem, such as Odin.fun, are not built on the Bitcoin chain. To improve the user's transaction experience and reduce fees, they are generally built on Bitcoin's layer-2 network. However, the problem they face is that these projects have difficulty sharing the security of the Bitcoin mainnet, and the hacker incident at Odin.fun is a manifestation of this problem.
Another more worthy issue to discuss is whether the token launch platforms built on layer-2 have enough momentum to attract enough capital and traffic to truly revive the Bitcoin ecosystem.
Odin.fun's Product Design Logic
Odin.fun was founded in February 2025 by the founder of the Bitcoin Ordinals market Bioniq, and is essentially a Runes protocol launch and trading platform. According to official disclosure, within a month, the trading volume of the Odin.fun platform exceeded 1000BTC, the number of platform addresses broke through 37,000, and the market value of the leading Rune ODINDOG•ID•YTTL•ODIN reached a maximum of $35 million.
The Runes protocol itself is not a new thing, it was born after the Bitcoin halving in 2024. Developer Casey had previously launched the Ordinals inscription protocol, and then developers derived the BRC-20 token protocol, but BRC-20 exposed problems such as low transfer efficiency and UTXO inflation. To solve these problems, Casey proposed the Runes protocol.
It is precisely because of the birth of these two protocols that Bitcoin has more asset issuance options beyond just value storage. And it is thanks to these two protocols that the Bitcoin ecosystem and related infrastructure have experienced an explosive development in 2023 and 2024.
For the crypto industry, one innovation that has never stopped is the innovation of asset issuance methods. Odin.fun is a revolution in the asset issuance and trading model of the Runes protocol.
For a token launch platform, the key to its success lies in the "casino" experience design, whether it can provide users with a good "gambling" experience.
In terms of the specific user experience, Odin.fun has realized second-level issuance of Runes assets and one-click trading of Runes assets issued on the platform.
According to the explanation on its official website, Odin.fun uses the layer-2 solution Valhalla to achieve final confirmation of transactions in 2 seconds.
In addition to speed, users can also experience account abstraction (no social login), no-gas transactions, and no need for repeated signature confirmation, which are very convenient experiences.
These are all thanks to Odin.fun hiding the underlying complexity of the chain. This is because Odin.fun is a layer-2 product under the Bitcoin mainnet, and the official calls this layer-2 solution Valhalla.
Because it is built on Bitcoin's layer-2, users need to create an account using their own Bitcoin wallet and then recharge their Bitcoin into the account. The process of recharging Bitcoin is a process of cross-chaining Bitcoin to the layer-2 built by the project.
The use of the layer-2 solution provides convenience to users, but the official has not disclosed the detailed implementation of the layer-2 technology, and in this hacker incident, we can roughly see some vulnerabilities or immaturity in their technology.
According to the co-founder, when users deposit funds into the platform, they will be deposited into a decentralized 12/34 threshold signature setting to ensure the security of BTC. These funds are then sent to the ODIN•FUN smart contract. All user BTCs are pegged to BTC on the Odin.fun platform at a 1:1 ratio. The disappearance of 74 bitcoins this time was due to an error in the deposit synchronization, causing them not to be displayed.
How is the security of the Bitcoin deposited by users guaranteed? The official explanation is that it is implemented through a multi-signature method. But multi-signature is not absolutely secure, and for users, they cannot manage their own assets, but have to entrust their assets to the Odin platform, which is essentially the logic of a centralized exchange.
Previously, X user @Real0xJason said that the BTC held by users on Odin.Fun is essentially ckBTC existing on the ICP public chain, and the ultimate security guarantee comes from the ICP public chain, and there is no need for a cross-chain bridge between ICP and the Bitcoin mainnet, as ICP's chain fusion encryption technology allows its smart contracts to interact directly with other networks, so the security is higher than the wrapped BTC generated by the cross-chain bridge on general Bitcoin L2.
As a token issuance and trading platform, the specific rules for token trading are as follows: on this platform, the token issuance process is called Ascend, that is, the token bonding process. The tokens created on Odin will initially trade along a bonding curve. On this curve, 80% of the token supply is sold at a price of 0.211 BTC. Odin uses sats (Satoshi) as the token price, with the initial price of a token being 0.11 sats (market value $3,000), and completing the Ascend at 4.76 sats (market value $100,000).
When the Ascend is completed, the project will enter the next stage, the AMM stage. According to the official website, once the token is bonded (i.e. Ascend), the remaining 20% of the token supply and 0.2BTC will be deposited into the AMM pool to support further trading. Thereafter, token trading will follow the AMM curve k = X * Y, no longer the previous bonding curve y = e^x.
For platform users, they not only can issue and trade tokens, but also do LP on top of this. And the platform adopts a referral bonus marketing model, with 25% of the platform fees going to the referrer.
Can Odin.fun Carry the Flag of Bitcoin Ecosystem Revival?
Currently, the development of the Bitcoin ecosystem is not very optimistic, without a project like the previous Ordinals that can ignite widespread participation. Because of this, the inflow of capital and traffic has not been able to trigger a new round of enthusiasm in the market for the Bitcoin ecosystem.
The previous Pump.fun and Viturals both brought heat to the Solana and Base chains respectively due to the hot Meme hype on top of them, allowing their on-chain ecosystems to develop. But Odin.fun seems to have not sparked the same on-chain ecosystem frenzy. And so far, the market value of its leading token has not exceeded $35 million at its highest.
But Odin.fun is not suitable for this logic, similar MemePump is not the first to appear in the Bitcoin ecosystem, there were Satspump.fun on the Bitcoin layer-2 Fractal, Lnpump.fun on the Lightning Network, and Stx.city on Stacks, etc. But these layer-2 or sidechain network Meme Pump platforms have not achieved the same volume as Pump.fun.
After all, it is difficult for a later imitator to surpass the successful predecessor, and a more important reason is that these layer-2 or sidechain Meme Pump platforms actually lack the legitimacy of the Bitcoin mainnet. This time, Odin.fun can stir up some volume, precisely because it has hit the Runes, a new asset issuance method closely related to the Bitcoin mainnet. And in the cold market, there are fewer hot spots to be hyped.
However, the influence of Odin.fun is limited to this point. For the Bitcoin ecosystem, it is not something innovative and hype-driven like Ordinals, but merely a combination of runes and MEME pump, two narratives that were once very popular but are now outdated. Therefore, the project itself has limited potential to generate hype, and for the Bitcoin ecosystem, a project with a relatively weak narrative is unable to carry the banner of Bitcoin's revival.
However, for investors, it is possible to participate with a small amount of capital. How to choose a token with potential for exponential growth? First, look at the community, and second, look at the big players. Essentially, this is more of a gamble, similar to the MEME play.
