{"id":522,"date":"2026-01-14T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kriptoblog.hu\/?p=522"},"modified":"2026-03-02T14:13:33","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T13:13:33","slug":"bitcoin-ordinals-runes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kriptoblog.hu\/en\/bitcoin-ordinals-runes\/","title":{"rendered":"Bitcoin Ordinals and Runes: NFTs and tokens on the Bitcoin blockchain"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Bitcoin's Hidden Evolution: Ordinals and Runes<\/h2>\n<p>In early 2023, developer Casey Rodarmor did something many thought was impossible and unnecessary: <strong>he brought NFTs and fungible tokens to the Bitcoin blockchain<\/strong>. The Ordinals and Runes protocols have been dividing the community ever since, but they undeniably opened a new chapter in Bitcoin's history.<\/p>\n<h2>What Are Ordinals?<\/h2>\n<p>The Ordinals protocol makes it possible for individual <strong>satoshis<\/strong> (the smallest unit of Bitcoin, 1 BTC = 100,000,000 satoshi) to be endowed with unique content:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Inscription:<\/strong> Images, texts, HTML, even entire applications \"inscribed\" directly onto the Bitcoin blockchain<\/li>\n<li>The content stays on the blockchain <strong>forever<\/strong> \u2014 not on an external server<\/li>\n<li>The Taproot upgrade (2021) made it technically possible<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>The \"Bitcoin NFT\" Storm<\/h3>\n<p>In early 2023, Ordinals literally blew up the Bitcoin network:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The mempool (pending transactions) swelled to record size<\/li>\n<li>Transaction fees skyrocketed \u2014 sometimes <strong>$50-100 per transaction<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Bitcoin blocks filled up with inscriptions<\/li>\n<li>Collections: Bitcoin Punks, NodeMonkes, Bitcoin Frogs, Quantum Cats<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>What Are Runes?<\/h2>\n<p>In April 2024 (exactly on the halving day), the <strong>Runes protocol<\/strong> launched \u2014 also created by Casey Rodarmor:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Fungible tokens (like ERC-20 on Ethereum) on the Bitcoin blockchain<\/li>\n<li>More efficient than the previous BRC-20 token standard<\/li>\n<li>Meme coins, utility tokens, even stablecoins issuable on Bitcoin<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>The Impact of Runes<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>On halving day, <strong>transaction fees temporarily exceeded the block reward<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Meme tokens (DOG, PUPS) generated billions in trading volume<\/li>\n<li>An important new revenue source for miners<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>The Bitcoin Community's Division<\/h2>\n<h3>Arguments of the Supporters<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Fee revenue:<\/strong> After the halving, miners increasingly rely on transaction fees \u2014 Ordinals\/Runes provide this<\/li>\n<li><strong>Innovation:<\/strong> Bitcoin cannot remain merely \"digital gold\" \u2014 it needs to evolve<\/li>\n<li><strong>Security budget:<\/strong> In the long term, fee revenue sustains the network's security<\/li>\n<li><strong>Developer interest:<\/strong> New developers and users are arriving in the Bitcoin ecosystem<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Arguments of the Critics<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Block spam:<\/strong> \"Junk\" fills the blocks, crowding out real financial transactions<\/li>\n<li><strong>Fee increase:<\/strong> Average users and Lightning channel openings become more expensive<\/li>\n<li><strong>Not what it's for:<\/strong> Bitcoin was designed as money, not an NFT platform<\/li>\n<li><strong>UTXO bloat:<\/strong> Runes tokens increase the size of the UTXO set<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>The Bitcoin Layer 2 and Meta-Protocol Ecosystem<\/h2>\n<p>Inspired by the success of Ordinals\/Runes, an entire ecosystem has grown:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Stacks (STX):<\/strong> Smart contracts built on Bitcoin, with sBTC Bitcoin-pegging solution<\/li>\n<li><strong>RGB Protocol:<\/strong> Smart contracts on the Lightning Network<\/li>\n<li><strong>Liquid Network:<\/strong> Blockstream federated sidechain with confidential transactions<\/li>\n<li><strong>BitVM:<\/strong> Turing-complete computation on Bitcoin (early phase)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Summary<\/h2>\n<p>Ordinals and Runes <strong>redefined what Bitcoin is capable of<\/strong>. Not everyone may be happy about it, but the genie is out of the bottle. Bitcoin is no longer \"just\" digital gold \u2014 it also carries the foundations of a <strong>programmable, extensible platform<\/strong> within itself.<\/p>\n<p><em>Bitcoin's greatest virtue and greatest challenge is that the community debates everything. The Ordinals\/Runes debate is the latest chapter in this \u2014 and probably not the last.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u26a0\ufe0f Legal disclaimer:<\/strong> This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. All investment decisions are made at your own risk.<\/p>\n<p><!-- IMAGE_PROMPT: Family Guy cartoon style illustration of Peter Griffin carving a crude drawing of himself into a giant golden Bitcoin coin with a chisel (representing Ordinals inscriptions), while Bitcoin maximalists (looking like angry villagers with pitchforks) chase him, Stewie launching tiny colorful \"Runes\" tokens from a cannon attached to the Bitcoin, the mempool visualized as a traffic jam of transactions behind them --><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Bitcoin rejtett fejl\u0151d\u00e9se: Ordinals \u00e9s Runes 2023 elej\u00e9n Casey Rodarmor fejleszt\u0151 olyat tett, ami sokak szerint lehetetlen \u00e9s sz\u00fcks\u00e9gtelen volt: NFT-ket \u00e9s fungibilis tokeneket hozott a Bitcoin blokkl\u00e1ncra. Az Ordinals \u00e9s Runes protokollok az\u00f3ta is megosztj\u00e1k a k\u00f6z\u00f6ss\u00e9get, de tagadhatatlanul \u00faj fejezetet nyitottak a Bitcoin t\u00f6rt\u00e9net\u00e9ben. Mi az az Ordinals? Az Ordinals protokoll lehet\u0151v\u00e9 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":558,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,3],"tags":[21,4,29,132,159,139,138,157,113,136,143],"class_list":["post-522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bitcoin","category-hirek","tag-banyaszat","tag-bitcoin","tag-ethereum","tag-halving","tag-layer-2","tag-lightning-network","tag-nft","tag-ordinals","tag-satoshi-nakamoto","tag-szabalyozas","tag-token"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kriptoblog.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kriptoblog.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kriptoblog.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kriptoblog.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kriptoblog.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=522"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kriptoblog.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":559,"href":"https:\/\/kriptoblog.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522\/revisions\/559"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kriptoblog.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kriptoblog.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kriptoblog.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kriptoblog.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}