Big update- only the first Rune will be hardcoded by Casey! Surprise! We thought we’d would be fighting for the #11 ticker but we’ll actually be fighting for #2. In his latest tweet, Casey released ord 0.17.0 which includes the final implementation of runes and named the genesis rune as “UNCOMMON GOODS”. This means the race is now officially for #2 and there are already several projects in the running.

So on that note, here’s my personal pick of major projects who have, at least, a good shot of being in the first ten. I hold some of them and as always none of this is financial advice.

Let’s start with the first one:

RSIC - This is an obvious pick because they were the first to airdrop a rune-related ordinal which started the whole rune-marketing craze. By holding and activating your RSICS, it will mine runes for you until the launch. Check your balance on ordiscan.com using your taproot ordinals wallet address. This one has first-mover advantage.

RUNESTONE - This is another obvious one because, as of recording, it still holds the #1 spot on Magic Eden’s 30 day charts by volume. It’s made headlines and news as the biggest Bitcoin iordinal airdrop of its time and its headed by Leonidas, a big KOL in the space. He has made a cryptic tweet that’s gaining traction on X:

In the discord he also wrote “…Upon the release of the Runes Protocol at block height 840,000, Runestone inscription holders will organize to distribute the Runestone Rune based on the number of Runestone inscriptions held. Runestone inscriptions will live on as collectible mementos for year one Ordinal supporters with no utility or roadmap.”

$PUPS - This one is also a no-brainer for me because it sits at #5 on Magic Eden’s 30 day Volume chart, and not to mention, almost every deriv Puppets project performs well. It's very memeable and commands a cult community. (You never want to bet against a cult.) You can either buy the brc20 $PUPS or hold a Rune pups to lock in your rune allocation. They claim to be the first meme token on Runes. We’ll see if that actually happens, but nonetheless I think they will be a formidable Runes token.

$ZBIT: I’ve mentioned them in a previous video but the reason I’m bringing them up again is because I spoke to a couple members of the team and this is essentially what they told me:

The brc20 $ZBIT distribution was 40% to the public free mint( 777), 20% to the DAO treasury, 20% to the BTC treasury and 20% for (BTC Machine) holders. 

This brc20 token belongs to a very large and complex ecosystem called Satoria where their flagship BTC Machines are a well known Ordinals collection. The project launched about a year ago and recently did a giant 200k Gamestone ordinal airdrop, just outdoing Leonidas’s Runestone airdrop.

The Gamestone airdrop was a really great way to expand their ecosystem, onboard more people, and bring more attention, to not only BTC Machines Satoria, but Runes in general. For the Gamestone update, they just announced prizes of Season 1:

One of the things they think their holders want is more Ordinals, and other is more real life trips and meetings. They also want to cater to different needs in discord such as bringing in guest speakers from different areas of expertise to share their knowledge. For example, they held a live chat with Leonidas on how to build your personal brand:

There was also a raffle where holders could enter to win one of 12 spots to a trip to morocco (winner pays 777 $ZBIT plus flight):

The team said their vision is to have $ZBIT be like the glue between Satoria’s in-game assets and crypto. All of which is currently in development. 

$ZBIT is planning to migrate to Runes via a “Claim” function not an airdrop. Similar to $PUPS, $ZBIT will likely burn brc20 tokens to get the Runes version. With each $ZBIT currently priced at $0.5 each, it’s a more accessible way to enter their large ecosystem. It’s also a great marketing play that helps prep their community to onboard the Runes train as well.

The first thing that struck me from our conversation is that they reinvested everything from the mint back into the ecosystem and are constantly thinking about how to give back value to their holders. I really love how there’s different raffles, games, and guest speakers - this is a big project that I’d keep my eyes on.

All in all, an impressive team, project and ecosystem that I look forward to exploring for the Runes launch.

That’s concludes my list of personal favorite picks that have a great chance of being a top 10 Runes and how you can lock in your allocations before halving. What do you think? Let me know your favorite picks and why!