Key Points
- Bitcoin’s upcoming halving event could trigger a surge for related networks and ecosystem tokens.
- Traders expect tokens such as STX, RUNE, and ORDI to rise in price.
Bitcoin’s upcoming halving event scheduled for April 20 could trigger a rise for related networks and ecosystem tokens. Traders expect to see upside moves on technical and memecoin projects, according to the OTC desk of trading firm Wintermute.
There’s a large, untapped pool of capital within the Bitcoin ecosystem that is still dormant, according to them, and only a few listed assets can be used by traders to gain exposure to the narrative.
They believe that if capital begins to rotate into the Bitcoin ecosystem, tokens such as RUNE, STX, and ORDI could see benefits and surges.
According to data from CoinGecko, THORChain’s RUNE and Stack’s STX are some of the top-performing assets of 2023. The meme coin ORDI managed to see a price rise of more than 2,500% since September of last year when it was issued.
Crypto trading platform Cube.Exchange’s founder, Bartosz Lipinski, recently said that meme coins and the upcoming Runes protocol could bring in some risky bets in the Bitcoin ecosystem.
Bitcoin ecosystem could see renewed hype
Lipinski believes that Ethereum’s high costs and network congestion could cause it to take a break, and Bitcoin-based projects such as Rune will be redirecting the hype around the meme coins to the BTC ecosystem thanks to its novelty.
The BRC-20 Ordinals NFT standard is likely to be overtaken by Runes, which is expected to launch on the same day as the Bitcoin halving.
He added that Runes will target the replacement of the standard with fungible tokens which will lead to the enabling of efficient creation of meme coins that can compete with projects on Base and Solana.
The other day, Lipinski also showed his support for Uniswap after the SEC’s attack.
We stand with @Uniswap 🧊🤝 https://t.co/044JIrrMmJ
— bartosz | bip-420 🧊 (@baalazamon) April 10, 2024
Ordinals provide a way to embed data into the Bitcoin blockchain by inscribing references to digital art in small BTC-based transactions.
During the past week, ordinal volumes were higher compared to the usual ones of Ethereum and Solana, with Pups and NodeMonkes as leaders.
Bitcoin’s halving is 8 days from now, and the event will reduce the rate at which new coins are created. The available new supply will be reduced. The current block reward is now 6.25 BTC, and it will see a drop to 3.125 BTC post-halving.
Regarding Bitcoin’s price today, at the moment of writing this article, BTC is trading above $70k. The coin managed to reclaim the important level following yesterday’s price drop due to the CPI report.
Bitcoin is up by about 2% in the past 24 hours on CoinMarketCap.