Bitfinity Weekly: Fun with Runes

Welcome to Issue #143 of Bitfinity Weekly for our #BITFINIANS community. If this newsletter was forwarded to you, sign up here.

What's in Today's Email?

• Bitcoin Bytes
• Global Crypto News
• In the IC
• This Week in our Blog
• Tweet of the Week
• Meme Time
• A Matter of Opinion

Bitcoin Bytes

No Ordinary Update: Ord 0.22.2 is out, with a slew of new features for Bitcoin developers to dive into: new wallet commands now allow for secure PSBT transfers to atomically swap Bitcoin for inscriptions, new file formats can now be inscribed (including .torrent and .opus--for audio files), a new rcursive endpoint, and more.

Bitcoin Magic: More good news for developers in the Bitcoin ecosystem! Pseudonymous dev lifofifo inscribed a widely used library for handling Bitcoin as part of The Wizards of Ord Elements libraries, helping to facilitate builders to incorporate data from any Bitcoin transaction into an inscription. The Wizards of Ord is an Ordinals community initiative to educate and onboard artists and builders, with a focus on technical contributions.

Cap Fr: Magic Eden placed a temporary cap on Runes listings at $1k. The restriction was explained as a temporary experimental solution with a more permanent auto-split solution coming soon. Supporters of the cap limit praised the potential boost in Runes liquidity by allowing buyers smaller lot entry options.

Fun with Runes: Entrepot and Bioniq marketplace founder Bob Bodily launched a "Runes pump fun" on Thursday. The platform, named Odin Fun, allows users to create, buy and sell tokens etched as Runes. Tokens are automatically etched once they bond to a marketcap of 1 $BTC, using chain and account abstraction.

Global Crypto News

Layer Abstraction: Abstract mainnet went live on Monday. The Ethereum layer-2 was launched by popular NFT brand Pudgy Penguins' parent company Igloo. Abstract's approach is unique in that common onboarding hurdles have been stripped away; for example, its native Abstract Global Wallet allows users to register on-chain with an email address, without a secret recovery phrase.

At Last: Kraken, a U.S.-based CEX, has resumed staking services for American customers for the first time in two years. The exchange had previously been one of the first crypto exchanges to provide staking services, but stopped in 2023, as part of a $30 million settlement with the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission).

The Venetian: Venice AI launched its token on the Eth L2 Base network. The VVV token is notable for being the first airdrop targeting AI agents, with 25% of the initial supply allocated to AI protocol accounts such as Luna, aixbt, VaderAI, and others across Virtuals and other artificial intelligent communities. The Venice platform provides decentralized access to opensource AI models without requiring downloads or account creation for use.

Partnership Party: Bitfinity Network welcomes 1Swap, a next-gen DEX, to its EVM ecosystem, bringing native Bitcoin DeFi, scalable low-cost trading, and cross-chain liquidity. Built in collaboration with CryptoAlgebra and 1buyio, this integration enhances the DeFi experience on Bitfinity EVM.
Bitfinity has partnered with Nomis to enhance decentralized reputation systems across Bitcoin and EVM ecosystems. This collaboration enables Nomis to integrate its reputation layer seamlessly, driving trust and innovation in Web3.

In the IC

Pick of the Litter: PickPump, an Internet Computer Protocol-based memecoin fair launchpad, released the first ICP plugin for ai16z/elizaOS. This allows for AI agents built using popular AI framework Eliza to aunch meme tokens on ICP.

Under the Bridge: Tap Protocol unveiled its Tron-to-Bitcoin bridge, opening the doors to onboarding the Tron community to Bitcoin. The bridge utilizes ICP's Chain Fusion technology for bridging, providing a seamless user experience.

Edge Case: The Internet Computer reached the Solenoid Milestone on Thursday! This achievement marks the full decentralization of boundary nodes, along with performance improvements like direct brower access to canister and an updated Discovery Library to help builders build faster, more robust products.

This Week in our Blog

Spend a little time delving into the Bitcoin ecosystem and you'll undoubtedly see the word "metaprotocol" mentioned by builders and traders alike. But what are metaprotocols and how do they make Bitcoin-native assets possible? Learn all about them in this week's deep dive:

The Meta-Morphosis: What Are Bitcoin Metaprotocols?

Did you know Bitcoin can support assets like tokens and NFTs without altering its original code? This is possible thanks to something called metaprotocols. Let’s dive into what metaprotocols are, how they work, and why they are so crucial for Bitcoin’s evolving ecosystem.

Bitfinity BlogHans

Tweet of the Week

Meme Time

A Matter of Opinion

As the first month of 2025 comes to a close, we'd like to remind our readers about the importance of maintaining a low profile when it comes to investments in cryptocurrency. It is undeniable that hacks, scams, and even life-threatening examples of extortions are on the rise recently, and especially so in the past month.

David Balland, one of the co-founders of popular hardware wallet Ledger, and his wife were kidnapped from his home in France and held for ransom in January. Although his wife was left unharmed, the kidnappers cut off one of Balland's fingers as part of their plan to demand a 7-figure ransom.

Other harrowing stories have been shared by crypto traders on X, from targeted hacks using social engineering, to more alarming incidents such as the one shared by PixOnChain. His IRL friend, who did not live a flashy lifestyle, nonetheless was robbed and extorted for the majority of his crypto holdings--a sum totalling over a million dollars.

The narrative from January's news stories is chilling but the good news is that we can take proper precautions to keep ourselves safe: keep your crypto activities low-key. Don't share your successes on social media, avoid linking personal identity with your digital assets, and consider the security implications of the platforms you use. Silence might just be the loudest form of security.

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