Can the Runes protocol become the mainstream issue coin standard in the crypto market?

In the field of cryptocurrency, Ethereum's ERC20 protocol, as the first major issue coin protocol, has made a significant contribution to the entire industry. It has not only promoted the development of the Ethereum public chain, making its smart contract platform a mainstream in the industry, but also fostered the rise of decentralized finance (DeFi), providing new possibilities for decentralized financing and entrepreneurship.

However, with the continuous evolution of the crypto market, emerging public chains are following the successful model of Ethereum, attempting to establish their own issue coin ecosystem. To stand out in this competitive market, new public chains need to have a sufficiently large market capitalization and innovate in the issue coin protocol to gain the recognition of users and the community.

In the current situation, the Runes protocol seems to have the most potential to challenge the dominance of ERC20. This judgment is based on the following factors:

1. Bitcoin, as the cryptocurrency with the highest market cap, provides a solid foundation for Runes.
2. The fair issuance mechanism of BRC20 inscriptions has gained widespread recognition, laying a solid community foundation for Runes.
3. The Runes protocol innovates on the basis of BRC20, integrating the advantages of BRC20 and ERC20, and operates directly on the Bitcoin mainnet.

The core feature of the Runes protocol is the use of the UTXO's op_return field to record information about token deployment, minting, and transfer operations. It allows token issuers to flexibly choose the issuance method, which can be a completely fair launch, team reserves and fundraising, or a combination of both.

Compared to BRC20, Runes offers greater flexibility and convenience. It not only supports team fundraising but also simplifies the transfer process, reducing the burden on the network and the transaction fees for users. Additionally, Runes supports batch transfers, improving trading efficiency.

Compared to ERC20, Runes, although lacking the support of Ethereum's mature ecosystem, is built on the more solid foundation of Bitcoin. As an emerging protocol, Runes has greater development potential and market attention. At the same time, it inherits the fair issuance concept of BRC20, which is of significant importance in the current encryption cycle. Although the Bitcoin network itself does not support complex smart contracts, through the combination with Bitcoin Layer 2 solutions (such as BEVM), Runes is expected to achieve business application scenarios similar to Ethereum.

The Runes protocol has detailed designs for token deployment, minting, and transfers. It allows project parties to reserve tokens during deployment and supports various launch methods, including full control by the project party, completely fair minting, or a combination of both. The minting process is constrained by preset conditions, while transfers are achieved through specific UTXO and op_return information.

Although the Runes protocol has shown great potential, whether it can ultimately surpass ERC20 and become the mainstream issue coin standard in the crypto market still needs to be tested by time and recognized by the market. Nevertheless, the emergence of Runes undoubtedly brings new vitality and possibilities to the cryptocurrency ecosystem.