Morning Minute | Magic Eden Re-Shapes Runes Trading on BTC

TylerD's Market Summary

Today's Morning Minute is brought to you by Arcade, the leading protocol for NFT lending.

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It's a major unlock.

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And of course - users are being rewarded.

Lending and borrowing on the Arcade protocol earns points which convert to $ARCD tokens.

So check Arcade out today, give or take some liquidity and start earning!

🟠 Runes Infrastructure Is Arriving

Some of the most common feedback around the hyped Runes launch was around the user experience.

It sucked, in short.

And it wasn't much better than the previous BRC-20 trading experience many already knew.

So where was the upgrade?

Well it may be arriving.

What Happened?

We knew infrastructure was coming for Runes, and yesterday we got the first glimpse.

Magic Eden made the blockbuster announcement that its Runes Marketplace was live yesterday afternoon.

And the user experience is pretty slick:

• Navigate to the Runes tab on ME Bitcoin
• Select a Rune from the drop down and a new Runes Table View pops up
• Use a sliding bar to buy as many as you'd like (and see the price + network fees) and then buy

It's just a handful of clicks, and in some ways, it's even easier than buying (sweeping) Ordinals on Magic Eden.

The fomo concept is still in play from the Ordinals experience, where users can see which Runes buys are still pending.

And the team has alluded to new features like a "Swaps View" coming soon, so this is not the final product.

You can read more about the team that built it in this feature from CNBC about Magic Eden's "hacker house."

But There's More

Magic Eden wasn't alone.

Xverse also launched its Runes Mint App, allowing users to mint or etch their own runes directly from the wallet.

And then likely the most important headline of them all - Taproot Wizards founder Udi Wertheimer introduced BIP-420.

BIP-420 is a formal "Bitcoin Improvement Proposal" tied to the OP_CAT proposal the team has been pushing forward for months now.

The premise is to better enable a crypto economy on Bitcoin via:

• covenants
• smart contracts
• secure bridges
• onchain trading
• zk proof verification

More key ETH features, on Bitcoin. And more usable than they are in current state (onchain trading is available now but admittedly clunky).

It's a grand vision, and if Udi and team are able to pull it off, it may go down as one of the most important proposals / implementations in Bitcoin history.

Why It Matters

There are several reasons why this matters and is a hugely important proposal for Bitcoin.

But dialing in to Runes, the topic of this newsletter - we are early.

Ordinals launched about a year before they really took off, largely due to improvements in UX and more meaningful project launches that took time to rollout.

There's a good chance the same happens with Runes.

Runes infrastructure is getting better already, and Magic Eden made a big jump with its debut yesterday.

But we still have a long way to go to come anywhere close to the trading experience on ETH or Solana.

The BIP-420 proposal will help Bitcoin get there - but it will take time.

Now is the time to pay attention to Runes, but also to be patient - it will get better.

🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?

Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:

• ETH led NFT trading volume with $7.6M on the day (+5%); BTC was next with $7.4M (-37%) and then Solana with $5.3M (-7%)
• ETH NFT leaders were very mostly green with BAYC +4% to 12.8 ETH, Pudgy +6% to 10.9 and MAYC even at 2.3
• DeGods jumped 18% after Frank DeGods showed a screenshot touting "bridge success" back to Solana
• My Pet Hooligan NFTs fell 35% after its KARRAT token debuted at a $100M mc and $800M FDV (hit $1B+ at peak)
• A Skulls of Luci sold for 85 ETH to Kanbas and a Hoodie CryptoPunk sold for 195 ETH, leading notable sales on the day
• Runestone led the BTC NFT board again with 39 BTC volume as volume and attention shifted to the Runes launch on Magic Eden; most leaders fell 10%
• OMB is the PFP leader at 0.487 BTC, then Quantum Cats at 0.44, Puppets at 0.4 and NodeMonkes at 0.385
• Solana NFTs were mostly red on the day; Mad Lads -8% at 93 SOL, Tensorians -even at 15, SMB Gen 2 -12% at 40; Exiled Degods jumped 234% after the news of DeGods bridging back to Solana
• NFT Stats announced his first ever NFT collection of 200 "gm" photos from around the world, to launch via Blastr on Blast, a new protocol offering full refunds for minters who are not satisfied 

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

Here's a rundown of major token or airdrop news from the day:

• Portal's first launchpad token sale, $SOMO from Somo Games, will take place this Thursday, Apr. 25 at 11:00 a.m. ET.
   
• Runestone's $DOG debuted on Whales Market as $0.005 which equates to a $500M mc (and would mean a $4500 airdrop per NFT)
• Maneki launched on Monday and saw $130M volume in just a few hours
• Arcade facilitated a $250,000 USDC loan against a collection of six Pudgy Penguins, including a Gold Body
• Fren Pet announced it will launch a new version this Friday with improved mechanics and new games
• Fantasy Top introduced Fantasy Stars, providing users with a points-for-prizes system based on deposits

🌎 Around Crypto and Web3

A few other Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:

• Crypto majors are slightly green this morning; BTC +0.3% at $66,300; ETH -1% at $3,180; SOL +0.7% at $155
• Memecoin majors were mixed on the day with a notable move of PEPE flipping WIF; DOGE -1%, WIF -4%, PEPE +4%; GUMMY and POPCAT outperformed on Solana, up 75% and 40%
• Maneki launched and reached $110M market cap in less than a day; POPCAT also outperformed, jumping 26% to $375M
• TN100x jumped 55% after its new tipping mechanism circulated on X
• Runes saw a mixed day as ZZFEHU soared 75% to $2.37B but prior leaders RSIC (-18%) and Satoshi (-33%) both fell
• Unisat confirmed reports that some users had Runes burned during transactions on its mp, saying it has since fixed the issue and it is now safe to trade Runes on UniSat marketplace
• Udi Wertheimer introduced BIP-420 as a formal proposal for Op_Cat which enables covenants, allows for smart contracts, secure bridges, on-chain trading, zk proof verification, and more
• Two SEC lawyers resigned after being sanctioned by a judge for "gross abuse" of power in a crypto case against DEBT Box
• Animoca Brands Japan will help with global marketing for the Square Enix game "Symbiogenesis"

🚀 Memecoin Movers 

• $MANEKI (+18000%, $100M market cap, Solana)
• $TN100X (+55%, $45M market cap, Base)
• $KEYCAT (+52%, $45M market cap, Base)
• $BIAO (+50%, $21M market cap, Solana)
• $POPCAT (+26%, $375M market cap, Solana)

📈 NFT Floor Price Increase (ETH)

• Coolmans Universe (90%, 0.11 ETH Floor)
• Yogurt Verse (53%, 1.15 ETH)
• Lasogette (32%, 0.83 ETH)
• Dooplicator (21%, 0.13 ETH)
• DeGods (18%, 1.65 ETH)

🗓 Upcoming NFT Mints and Reveals

Today is another slower day of drops, mostly focused in PFPs and art across chain.

Post Photographic Perspectives III is likely the highlight, as the AI art group releases its 3rd body of projects.

See the full list and dive in for more details with Swizzy's daily mint monitor. 

• Evolution of Curis (9:00 a.m. ET)
• PunkAApepen (12:00 p.m. ET)
• The Paper Crane x Rich Pool - IsoMetro (1:00 p.m. ET)
• Post Photographic Perspectives III (1:00 p.m. ET)

Enjoy this write-up and/or want to sponsor the Morning Minute? Follow along with me on Twitter @tyler_did_it or reach out via email to tyler.warner@luckytrader.com.