Bitcoin calls, THORChain answers: What does RUNE do?

Journalist

Posted: November 14, 2023

• About $224 million of the total volume involving Bitcoin took place on the THORChain DEX.
• RUNE’s price increased by 50% as the interest in the token continued to rise.

For religious followers of the crypto market, you’d agree that many Bitcoin [BTC] faithfuls find it difficult to openly admit admiration for any other blockchain apart from the king.

But recently, THORChain [RUNE] has found itself in the midst of some Bitcoin maxis, and seemingly for the right reasons.

One of the front-runners of the Bitcoin-THORChain marriage is Erik Voorhees, founder of ShapeShift.co. Voorhees, on the 12th of November, opined that THORChain should be the only market where Bitcoin should be traded.

Principled Bitcoiners should be familiar with @THORChain

It is the *only market* to trade #Bitcoin at scale without an intermediary… which is the entire point of Bitcoin.

>$200m of native non-wrapped BTC was traded here in the past 24 hrs, permissionlessly.

If you’d like… https://t.co/0WW4QRCo6F

— Erik Voorhees (@ErikVoorhees) November 12, 2023

BTC chooses THORChain

Voorhees’ opinion was in response to an update that THORChain was responsible for about $224 million of BTC trading around the same period. Fundamentally, the chain enables the exchange of Layer-1 assets like BTC while acting as a settlement protocol.

So, the surge in DEX volume implies that users who wanted to transact with the non-native Wrapped Bitcoin [WBTC], flocked to the protocol THORChain. Consequently, the rise in activity on the protocol ensured that it had the highest surge in trading volume in the last seven days.

While the volume of other DEXes like Uniswap [UNI] and PancakeSwap [CAKE] also surged, THORChain seemed to be keeping them both on their heels. Regarding the trading pair with the highest transactions on the protocol, AMBCrypto analyzed Coinranking’s data.

Here, we found out that the ETH/RUNE and USDT/RUNE pairs had far less volume than the BTC/RUNE pair. This data was a testament to the Voorhees post mentioned earlier. Apart from the happenings on THORChain, its native token RUNE also had its moment.

Can’t “RUNE” the prospects

According to CoinMarketCap, the value of RUNE has skyrocketed to $5.17. This price represented a 50.90% hike in the last seven days. In fact, while some altcoin prices dropped, RUNE ran against the direction of play up until the last 24 hours when the upward momentum shrunk.

Source: CoinMarketCap

Despite the obstruction in the uptrend, the Weighted Sentiment around RUNE stayed positive. The Weighted Sentiment considers the unique social volume pertaining to the perception market players have about a project.

If the metric rises, it implies more optimism for the assets in question. But a negative reading of the metric suggests otherwise. At press time, RUNE’s Weighted Sentiment was 2.42, suggesting that the broader market was still bullish on the price action.

Source: Santiment

Read THORChain’s [RUNE] Price Prediction 2023-2024

Additionally, the Open Interest around RUNE on exchange has risen to $74.91 million.  Open Interest is a measure of market activity. So, the jump in the metric implies that market participants are watching the token closely.

It is also a sign that there has been a surge in the number of spot and futures positions.