Why we built BRUNE
Runes were supposed to be the memecoins of Bitcoin. Bitcoin is too slow to trade them, so we made them trade at BNB Chain speed.
Runes were meant to be Bitcoin's memecoins
In April 2024, at block 840,000, the fourth Bitcoin halving, the Runes protocol went live. For the first time Bitcoin had a simple, native way to create fungible tokens: no sidechain, no wrapped copy, just tokens living in ordinary Bitcoin outputs, secured by the largest network in crypto.
The idea was obvious to everyone: Bitcoin finally had its own memecoins.
Bitcoin is too slow to trade them
Memecoins live on speed. Prices move in seconds, and traders need to get in and out just as fast. Bitcoin was never built for that:
| Bitcoin | BNB Chain | |
|---|---|---|
| New block | About every 10 minutes | About every 0.45 seconds |
| Trade confirmed | 10 minutes for one confirmation, about an hour for six | About a second |
| Fees when it gets busy | Can jump sharply, exactly when everyone wants to trade | A few cents |
| How you trade | Marketplace listings, one confirmation at a time | Automated pools that are always liquid |
By the time a Bitcoin trade confirms, a memecoin market has already moved. So Runes stayed what Bitcoin made them: slow, expensive and hard to trade.
And there is no pool to sell into. To sell a Rune on Bitcoin, you list it on a marketplace and wait for someone to buy it. If nobody does, you are stuck with it. See Bringing Runes back.
Our answer: issued on Bitcoin, traded on BNB Chain
BRUNE launches every coin on both chains at once:
- On Bitcoin, the coin is a real Rune. Its whole supply is etched straight into its own 2-of-2 custody address (BRUNE + an independent co-signer), with the coin's logo and details inscribed alongside it.
- On BNB Chain, the same coin is a token that trades on a Flap bonding curve in about a second, priced in BTC.
- The bridge connects the two 1:1. Every token on BNB Chain is backed by a Rune held on Bitcoin, and holders can move between them.
That is how BRUNE trades Bitcoin Runes at BNB Chain speed: the coin keeps everything Bitcoin gives a Rune, and trades the way a memecoin should.
Then we found Runes were being named the wrong way
A Rune's name is unique forever: once it is etched, nobody can ever etch it again. That makes the name an identifier, exactly like a token's contract address (CA). Yet the Runes world has been using that identifier as the coin's brand, because Runes have almost no metadata.
BRUNE treats the Rune name as an address and puts the brand (name, ticker, image and links) in metadata, the way every BNB Chain token already works. Read Rune names are addresses.
Where this goes
Every BRUNE Rune is etched with its metadata, and every one of them trades at BNB Chain speed. Read Bringing Runes back for how we want to change the way Runes work, and why we think it brings the Runes market back.