Bitcoin Meme Coin DOG Hits $336 Million Market Cap After Runes Airdrop

DOG•GO•TO•THE•MOON (aka DOG), a Bitcoin meme coin etched via the new Runes protocol, was airdropped to holders of the Runestone Ordinals project on Wednesday, immediately vaulting the newly created coin to the title of the most widely held Runes token to date.

Holders of DOG surpassed 74,000 on Wednesday, according to data from minting and etching platform Luminex. It’s by far the Runes token with the most holders since the launch of the Runes protocol last week. Next on the list is RSIC•GENESIS•RUNE, with nearly 22,000 holders.

On Wednesday, pseudonymous DOG•GO•TO•THE•MOON c0-creator Leonidas tweeted that 100 billion total dog-themed Runes were airdropped to eligible wallets. Wallets that hold Runestone Ordinal inscriptions—which themselves were dropped to 112,383 wallets in March—received the new Runes tokens.

The top five wallets with DOG hold nearly 10% of the total supply, with the largest holding 6.7 billion tokens, around 6.65% of the tokens that were etched. On the secondary market, DOG•GO•TO•THE•MOON has a floor price of 5.28 sats, the lowest denomination of a Bitcoin, or around $0.003 worth of BTC.

But don’t let the tiny number fool you; on Runes marketplace Magic Eden, the puppy-powered Rune already has a one-day volume of 53.1 BTC, or around $3.4 million. Total trading volume since Wednesday’s launch is estimated at $10 million. According to Magic Eden, the current market capitalization for DOG is approximately $336 million.

Other Runes collections will large holder counts include RSIC•GENESIS•RUNE with 21,938, Z•Z•Z•Z•Z•FEHU•Z•Z•Z•Z•Z with 21,382, SATOSHI•NAKAMOTO with 19,655, and BITCOIN•PEPE•MATRIX with 16,601.

The curious-looking names are due to a minimum length requirement encoded in the Runes protocol meant to prevent name squatting. The length requirement will gradually shorten over time as more Bitcoin network blocks are processed.

Edited by Andrew Hayward