Original | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)
Author: Golem (@web3_golem)
At 10:30 this morning, the new rune MEMENTO•MORI created by Casey, the founder of Ordinals and Runes, was launched for fair casting, which took 9 blocks to complete. Bitcoin network transaction fees soared during this period, with the median fee reaching more than 500 satoshis/byte. According to Magic Eden data, MEMENTO•MORI currently has a market value of $17 million, and its trading volume has exceeded 100 BTC, equivalent to about $7.81 million.
Before and after the MEMENTO•MORI airdrop and minting, different opinions emerged in the community:
- "It's very simple. I spent 5 dollars and got hundreds of dollars in airdrops."
- "The start of the casting will be very intense, so be prepared in advance"
- "I'm afraid that the casting will be buried, so I'd better buy some in the trading market first."
- "There must be insider trading. This is all Casey's conspiracy."
- ......
50% airdrop in advance, participating addresses will earn 100 times the profit
MEMENTO•MORI was etched by Casey on October 22 on top of its previously hard-coded rune 0 UNCOMMON•GOODS. The total supply of this rune is 100 million, but only 50% of the total supply was fairly minted today. The other 50% was reserved in advance by Casey and airdropped to subscribers of his podcast "Hell Money" early this morning.
However, this airdrop was not without any warning like other popular airdrops in the Bitcoin ecosystem. As early as October 24, Casey revealed in the Hell Money podcast that 50% of the rune MEMENTO•MORI reserved in advance would be airdropped to its podcast subscribers, and stated that no snapshot had been taken. This seems to be a hint. Fortunately, the subscription cost of the Hell Money podcast is not high, with a minimum of only $5 per month, so many players subscribed to win the airdrop.
On October 30, lifofifo announced the list of addresses that received the MEMENTO•MORI airdrop on the X platform, totaling 2,907 addresses. The amount of airdrops each address received was related to the subscription level and duration. Even if you chose to subscribe to the lowest level of $5/month after Casey announced the airdrop, you could still get about 1,400 MEMENTO•MORI.
Casey spent about $31,000 in fees to complete the airdrop. According to Magic Eden data, after the airdrop was completed, the floor price and trading volume of MEMENTO•MORI soared, with the highest unit price exceeding 400 sats, and one sat was worth more than $350. Compared with the minimum participation cost of $5, the profit has been dozens of times.
The casting start-up enthusiasm is lower than expected, and the price continues to fall
Based on Casey's "status" and influence in the Bitcoin ecosystem, and MEMENTO•MORI is in a sense his first rune, the community expects that the Bitcoin network fee will be raised to four figures when the minting begins. According to the cost forecast of Bitcoin ecosystem blogger CG, if the minting network fee exceeds 1,000 satoshis/byte, the cost of a single MEMENTO•MORI will reach $110, and the initial market value will exceed $10 million.
In fact, before the start of minting, according to the transaction price on Magic Eden, the market value of MEMENTO•MORI has exceeded 20 million US dollars. If the cost game is carried out, the community estimates that the minting cost will be more than 1500 satoshis/byte. Therefore, some players have prepared enough addresses and handling fees in advance; some players think that the risk of minting is too high, so it is better to buy in the market first and then arbitrage when the minting cost soars.
But surprisingly, although the Bitcoin network fee increased after the start of minting, it did not soar to more than 1,000 satoshis/byte as expected, and the median miner fee was only around 500 satoshis/byte. At the same time, the trading floor price of MEMENTO•MORI on Magic Eden continued to decline with the progress of minting. The latest transaction price is 230 sats, and the price of a single piece is about US$160, which is about 46% lower than the price before minting.
The market enthusiasm caused by MEMENTO•MORI is not as high as expected. Except for the users who received airdrops through subscription before, the profit is not ideal if they buy before minting or do not make timely arbitrage after minting.
MEMENTO•MORI Is this Casey’s conspiracy?
Although the current price of MEMENTO•MORI has not broken the issue price, the trading volume and price soared after the airdrop, and the popularity and price collapsed rapidly after the fair minting was enabled. In addition, the previous airdrop rules were opaque and there was huge room for manipulation. Many community members also complained that they had subscribed but did not receive the airdrop, which inevitably makes people wonder whether there are human factors behind it.
Although the PVP level of new coin issuance in the Bitcoin ecosystem is not as high as that of Solana Meme, the number of participants and the amount of funds are also far less than that of Solana Meme. Therefore, there is a unique on-chain arbitrage type of new coin issuance. When a project is minted, its life cycle is over. The new coin issuance in the Bitcoin ecosystem has always pursued fairness. Excessive reservations by project parties and teams will be regarded as negative. However, as the PVP level deepens and no external funds are injected for a long time, people’s attention to fairly minted tokens and communities built purely on consensus has decreased a lot.
As a result, they turned their funds and attention to assets issued by individuals or leading communities with certain halos, expecting that these assets would bring wealth opportunities under their influence, but in most cases they themselves became the targets of harvesting.
After the minting of MEMENTO•MORI began, Casey once again issued a disclaimer on the X platform, emphasizing that MEMENTO•MORI has no value and is just a "junk coin."
Casey mentioned MEMENTO•MORI in his podcast, saying it is related to death, mainly reminding people to cherish the brevity of life and think about the inevitable death. This is indeed a very good implication, but most players still pay attention to MEMENTO•MORI because it has the "Casey aura". Maybe this rune is really an experiment or a game for him rather than a conspiracy, but for most players, it is still just a target that they once loved.
