GM

Sorry if you received yesterday's email multiple times for some reason.

Not sure which intern was responsible for that so I exiled all 12 of them just to be safe.

Links for the Top 25 drops are HERE.

This is a wild way to kick off a memecoin

This thing you see above is called The Runestone. It’s a 3D rock designed by artist Leo Caillard and released by Leonidas, a popular figure in the Ordinals community.

And earlier today, someone bought it for 8 BTC (around $544,000 at the time of this writing). 

Why? 

Mainly two reasons: 

1. It was a historical technical achievement

This was part of the largest Bitcoin block ever mined, the largest inscription ever, and the first block that consisted of just a single ordinal. And some say these records may never be broken. 

It’ll forever look like this on the blockchain: 

2. It’s tied to an upcoming memecoin

The idea behind The Runestone is to reward people who collected Ordinals during the first year of its existence, which ended last month. 

They’ll do this with a two-part airdrop:

First, 112,383 wallets will receive a single Runestone inscription that points to the “parent” Runestone auctioned today (you can check for eligibility here).

Then, Runes tokens (the actual memecoin) will be airdropped to everyone holding a Runestone inscription. This comes after the halving in April, when Casey Rodarmor, the inventor of Ordinals, is set to release the new Runes protocol for memecoins on Bitcoin (we talked about this here). 

The proceeds from today’s sale are said to go toward covering the Bitcoin fees during the airdrop.

Leonidas also claims that this memecoin has a “fair launch” with no insider access or team allocation (similar to the launch of Bitcoin itself). 

Of course “fair” is always difficult to prove. In this case, the team could’ve easily gamed the system by loading up on wallets that qualified with the first-year requirement, which only they knew was going to be in place. But we’ll likely never know, and in the end what matters is what the public believes.  

Bottom line

Honestly this is fun. 

A single giga-sacred-digital-object for sale, created out of thin air and given value through belief and technical creativity alone.

Uber wealthy Bitcoin whales competing aggressively for it. An entire community riding on it. All this drama contained within a group of tiny crypto nerds, with approximately zero outsiders even aware that it’s happening. 

Are you not entertained? 

I’m also a fan of turning ultra-rare individual objects into anchors for memecoins or larger collections, which we first talked about here and recently saw in Lucréce's upcoming collection here. This idea seems to be picking up speed now. 

NOTE: These drops are lightly curated. Our only requirement is that they have recognizable founders. As usual, DYOR. To learn more go here.

Mitosis by Moodsoup

Vivid, one of the most popular art galleries on Bitcoin, is back with Mitosis, a new collection by creative coder Stefan Reyniers, a.k.a. Moodsoup.

Staying true to the title, while threading the line between organic and manmade worlds, Mitosis visualizes organisms dividing in colorful, abstract works.

It’s a release that follows back-to-back sellouts for Vivid, and one that might enthuse Bitcoin gen art believers.

Co-Museum Founder’s Pass

Animoca’s latest investment is here with Co-Museum, a platform promising to revolutionize the experience of collecting art and artifacts.

Its name implies a fractionalization of assets, but details are very limited right now (with a premint raffle offering the most context).

A Founder’s Pass is scheduled to mint soon, which offers the tried-and-true list of benefits one might expect from such an offering: early access to drops, exclusive partnerships and rewards, etc.

I like what they’re spittin’, but the verse is currently unfinished.

INK

If you’ve been following the discourse around upcoming Bitcoin Ordinals, you’ve probably heard of INK by now, an anime collection made by a team of pseudonymous comic artists and developers.

It’s got a lot of people excited as the first original high-supply anime PFP on BTC, a genre that has been done to death on ETH but feels fresher on the orange chain.

Or maybe it’s the fact that they are inscribed on extra special legacy sats once held in the Midas-like hands of the Ordinals Overlord himself, Casey Rodarmor (though these rare sat narratives are a bit unconvincing for me).

While no post-mint plans have been revealed, the black-and-white art combined with Bitcoin orange has people riled up. And sometimes, that’s all that matters.