Glossary
Runes
A 2024 Bitcoin protocol from Casey Rodarmor for issuing fungible tokens directly in UTXOs — more efficient than BRC-20 inscriptions and natively unspent-output-aware.
Runes activated on Bitcoin at the April 2024 halving block. Unlike BRC-20, which encodes balances as JSON inscriptions interpreted by off-chain indexers, Runes piggyback on Bitcoin's UTXO model: each runes balance is attached to a specific UTXO and moves natively with that output.
The design is cheaper, faster, and more aligned with Bitcoin's native accounting. Runes drove much of the post-halving fee activity on Bitcoin and remains one of the largest Bitcoin-native asset standards.