7 Bitcoin Ordinals and Runes Projects You Should Know Ahead of the Halving

It’s a wild time for Bitcoin. The leading cryptocurrency’s price surged higher and higher in March to break its 2021 peak price, spot Bitcoin ETFs are spurring wider interest in the coin, and this month’s Bitcoin halving and Runes token protocol are driving significant excitement.

Given all of that, it’s no surprise that Bitcoin Ordinals are white hot lately, with the NFT-like assets taking over the market and shaking up the battle between marketplaces as well. If you’ve been sitting on the sidelines, now’s the time to take a closer look at Ordinals and the growing buzz around the on-chain Bitcoin assets.

Ahead of the Bitcoin halving and Runes protocol launch expected on April 20, here’s a look at seven of the biggest and most in-demand Ordinals projects—and what you should know about them. Some already have Runes token plans, while others may join that party soon, given the growing hype around the token standard.

NodeMonkes

Image: NodeMonkes

You might call NodeMonkes the CryptoPunks of the Ordinals ecosystem. Like Punks on Ethereum, they’ve taken a prominent perch as the most valuable 10,000-item profile picture (PFP) collection on Bitcoin.

These chunky-pixel avatars start at $45,000 worth of Bitcoin, and the project’s entry price briefly passed the USD value of the Bored Ape Yacht Club on Ethereum. One NodeMonke even sold for more than $1 million worth of BTC in March.

Runestone

Image: Runestone

Launched in March, Runestone is a project spanning more than 112,000 Ordinals assets were airdropped free to collectors who met certain criteria during the first year of the Bitcoin protocol’s existence. These gleaming digital crystals have since become in demand, and due to the large size of the collection, its market cap is currently the largest on Bitcoin at $650 million.

Holders have been promised up to three token airdrops once the Bitcoin Runes protocol launches later this month alongside the halving, so that’s surely driving some of the trading interest. The first token will be a meme coin based on a dog, believe it or not.

Taproot Wizards/Quantum Cats

Image: Taproot Wizards

Taproot Wizards was the first prominent Bitcoin Ordinals collection, and the company has since gone on to raise $7.5 million in funding to “finally move Bitcoin forward” with development of culture and infrastructure, as co-founder Udi Wertheimer told Decrypt last year.

While the actual Taproot Wizards assets aren’t tradeable, the company dropped one of the biggest Ordinals collections to date in January with Quantum Cats, which included an auction through Sotheby’s. The project has a market cap of $68 million as of this writing.

Bitcoin Puppets

Image: Bitcoin Puppets

You’ve probably seen Bitcoin Puppets plastered all over Crypto Twitter, and the Ordinals project has quickly become one of the most valuable collections in the space. It’s also decidedly one of the most visually unique projects in Bitcoin, with monkey characters that look like they were quickly bashed together in Microsoft Paint.

Add in drug references and other random props, plus a price point starting at $28,000 worth of Bitcoin, and these Puppets are grabbing plenty of attention. Also hot: Rune Pups, which were airdropped free to Bitcoin Puppets holders, and the associated BRC-20 token.

RSIC Metaprotocol

Image: RSIC Metaprotocol

Before Runestone significantly raised the stakes, RSIC Metaprotocol grabbed the Bitcoin world’s attention in January by airdropping 21,000 inscriptions to wallets of Ordinals collectors in the space. With a name recalling ASIC mining computers, the RSIC project is a gamified campaign that lets holders mine tokens for the upcoming Runes protocol launch. The buzz around the project has catapulted its market cap above $130 million at present.

OnChainMonkey

Image: OnChainMonkey

OnChainMonkey is an interesting anomaly on this list, as it was a long-running project on Ethereum before the Ordinals protocol launched. Unlike some projects (like DeGods) that have minted Ordinals alongside their existing collections, OnChainMonkey opted to let users migrate their Ethereum NFTs over to the chain—and even reward them with a BRC-20 token called KARMA to do so.

Ordinal Maxi Biz

Image: Ordinal Maxi Bix

Like Bitcoin Puppets, Ordinal Maxi Biz really leans into a lo-fi aesthetic. In this case, each of the 5,200+ Ordinals assets looks like a simple pen-drawn riff on one of Ethereum’s iconic CryptoPunks, looping in surreal doodle designs, existential and societal themes, and other eye-catching details. It’s a collaboration between artist Tony Tafuro, zk-Shark, and NULLISH, and one of the most valuable Ordinals collections, with assets starting at nearly $30,000 worth of Bitcoin.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.