Bitcoin Gets a Meme Coin Launchpad Like Pump.fun—Can It Boost Runes?

The founders of Bioniq, a marketplace for Bitcoin-based collectibles, launched Odin.fun Thursday—aiming to reinvigorate a tepid Runes meme coin market by mirroring Solana’s immensely popular Pump.fun token launchpad.

Letting users launch Bitcoin-based meme coins in a way that parallels the popular Solana app, Odin.fun was designed around speed, Bioniq CEO and co-founder Bob Bodily told Decrypt. The platform features two-second transaction finality, according to a press release, ensuring that traders aren’t waiting around for meme coins to hit (or leave) their wallets.

“Meme coins need to be traded at the speed of light,” Bodily said. “There’s something about the degen mentality where you have to be able to sell your position immediately because people overbuy crazy stuff, and as they’re watching the chart, they get anxious.”

Launched alongside Bitcoin’s so-called quadrennial halving by Casey Rodarmor last year, Runes are effectively Bitcoin-based meme coins. They come with technical quirks compared to meme coins issued on Solana or Ethereum, however, due to Bitcoin’s lack of smart contracts.

On the NFT marketplace Magic Eden, which began supporting Runes at launch, users must  transact Runes in batches. Instead of being able to specify a specific quantity of Runes, a buyer, for example, would have to find a deal among a series of lots that sellers have listed.

On top of that, Runes transactions are often constrained by Bitcoin’s block times, where a fresh set of validated transactions is added onto Bitcoin’s blockchain every 10 minutes.

The friction associated with Runes has drawn negative chatter online. Runes saw a flurry of activity at launch, accounting for 81% of Bitcoin’s network activity, but enthusiasm has waned.

Over the past week, major Runes have faced pressure, as the price of projects like DOG•GO•TO•THE•MOON and PUPS•WORLD•PEACE have fallen by 10% each, per Magic Eden.

“The last week and a half or so, there’s been a lot of turmoil in the community,” Bodily said. “You have a really nice fungible token standard on Bitcoin—it’s still really rough around the edges.”

Meanwhile, Pump.fun has turned into a juggernaut on Solana, securing millions of dollars in fees amid an endless tsunami of meme coins. The platform’s simplicity made it possible for anyone, even children, to launch a meme coin for only a few dollars worth of crypto.

Like Pump.fun, Runes created through Odin.fun initially trade on a “bonding curve.” That means a Rune’s price will increase along a predefined curve until a market cap of one Bitcoin is reached, and the token then shifts over to Odin.fun’s built-in automated market maker.

Bioniq began developing Odin.fun three months ago, and Bodily said the platform’s secret sauce boils down to Dfinity’s Internet Computer (ICP). Bioniq tapped ICP’s blockchain network to effectively create an “under-the-hood” app-chain for Odin.fun called Valhalla, Bodily said, enabling a faster and smoother trading experience than Bitcoin’s blockchain can offer alone.

Odin.fun also aims to offer a seamless trading experience by utilizing so-called session keys, which eliminate the need for users to sign off on every transaction they make.

Currently in beta, Bodily said that around 200 users are testing Odin.fun. So, while it may not move the needle on Runes-related activity immediately, a full launch is set for Monday.

Edited by Andrew Hayward