Btcfi Innovation On Runes

The Spaces brought together builders shaping Bitcoin-layer runes: host Barbara, Ray (Taiki), Scott (Radfi), and Musing (Rich Swap), with community inputs from Azim and Goron/Tandy. Scott outlined Radfi’s fully on–Bitcoin AMM and launchpad using PSBT atomic swaps and a 2-of-2 multisig trading wallet for near‑instant UX, plus “virtual minting” that directs mint BTC into liquidity pools rather than miner fees. Musing detailed Rich Swap’s flash trade via CPFP, enabling swaps and LP with unconfirmed UTXOs, protocol revenue donations in BTC to pools, and open-source infra for builders. Ray explained why Taiki commits to Runes as the best Bitcoin asset protocol, its L2 stack on ICP, and mini‑games (on‑chain randomness coin flip now live; “Pinkel” coming) to attract non‑crypto users. The group discussed liquidity for OG runes, UX/branding’s role (Radfi’s casino‑style engagement and “rats” identity), strong turnout and validation from Runes Asia, and recent attention from OML’s leaderboard (clarified as independent from Radfi). Barbara teased Sass Terminal’s pipeline (Rune bridge to Spark, swaps, and a hedge aggregator) while emphasizing education to onboard new users. Overall: UX improvements, sustainable liquidity, gaming, and coordinated innovation across L1/L2 are accelerating the Runes ecosystem.

Sass Terminal Spaces: Bitcoin DeFi and Runes — Innovation, Liquidity, and UX

Speakers and Roles

• Barbara (Host, Sass Terminal Spaces)
• Ray (Founder & CEO, Taiki — a Layer 2 application for Bitcoin/Runes)
• Scott (Co-founder & CEO, Radfi — Bitcoin L1 AMM and Launchpad)
• Musing (Product Manager, RichSwap — Bitcoin L1 AMM)
• Azim (Community member; Q&A)
• Goron (aka Tandy/Tendy; community builder and commentator)

Context: Why this Space, Why Now

• Runes is approximately 1 year and 5 months old—still early, yet with rapid iteration and many builders shipping.
• Despite low market volumes, there’s visible momentum: new UX, liquidity solutions, and on-chain experiments to make Runes trading sustainable and fun.
• A fresh wave of attention was sparked by OML’s leaderboard and ongoing launches, drawing newcomers into the Bitcoin/Runes ecosystem.

Platform Overviews and Core Innovations

Radfi (Scott)

• What it is: A fully on-chain AMM and Launchpad on Bitcoin Layer 1 using PSBTs; all swaps are atomic on Bitcoin.
• UX problem solved: Early Runes trading felt like NFT-like block trades with slow confirmation. Radfi introduced a near-instant trading experience while preserving L1 security.
  • Mechanism: Users deposit to a Radfi Trading Wallet (2-of-2 multisig between user and Radfi). Radfi’s signature periodically expires; Radfi cannot move funds without the user’s signature. This enables a DeFi-like UX while keeping Bitcoin-native security and atomic settlement.
• Launchpad (Virtual Minting): Targets the unsustainable “burn fees, no liquidity” mint meta that plagued early Bitcoin token launches.
  • Prior state: Users spent heavily on miner fees to mint; fees went to miners; tokens launched without liquidity.
  • Radfi’s change: Maintains the minting experience but redirects BTC collected during mint to seed liquidity and trading for the token, rather than burning it on fees. This reduces mempool spam and creates immediate, sustainable markets.
• Roadmap and focus:
  • Current Launchpad best suited to fair-launch memecoins; structured launches (e.g., more serious projects) will be supported with new features based on recent user/builder feedback (post-Hong Kong Runes Asia). Timing not precisely set, but “bells and whistles” are now a focus.
  • Liquidity for OG Runes: As Radfi grows revenue, it plans to build reserves and market-make for legacy Runes (e.g., Doggo to the Moon, Gizmo, Puffs), aiming to be the best place to mint and trade Runes across the board.

RichSwap (Musing)

• What it is: A fully on-chain, trustless AMM on Bitcoin Layer 1 focused on Runes.
• Flash Trade with Unconfirmed UTXOs (reinstated last week):
  • Mechanism: Powered by Bitcoin’s CPFP (Child-Pays-For-Parent). Traders co-sign PSBTs with the pool; outputs from unconfirmed transactions can be reused to add liquidity or perform additional swaps before confirmation, improving capital velocity and UX.
  • Constraint: Each UTXO can support a chain of up to ~25 transactions per block, effectively setting a throughput ceiling per pool/UTXO chain. The team is researching ways to extend or work around this in the future.
  • Security: Initially launched at RichSwap’s day one (Feb), temporarily paused for additional security research, then brought back based on community demand (similar user expectations to Radfi’s fast UX).
• Protocol Revenue Donation (activated recently):
  • All protocol revenue is donated, in BTC, to the “Hope You Get Rich” pool on RichSwap, simultaneously lifting Runes prices (by adding BTC to pools), rewarding LPs in BTC, and deepening liquidity.
  • Collaboration: Blockmanner (a PoW Runes launchpad) donates their “cost of risks” to RichSwap pools as BTC, reinforcing the liquidity flywheel.
• Open Infrastructure: Open-sourcing components and providing builder infrastructure (RE/“re” and Risk Lab mentioned) to accelerate innovation on Bitcoin L1.
• UX Goal: Provide an Ethereum-like trading experience on Bitcoin L1 by leveraging CPFP and carefully designed pool mechanics. Ongoing collaboration with aggregators (Sass Terminal mentioned) to improve routing and convenience.

Taiki (Ray)

• What it is: A Layer 2 application focused on Bitcoin and Runes. Taiki unifies token creation, on-chain trading, token applications, and innovative yield mechanics. Built on “RE” and Internet Computer Protocol (ICP) tech.
• Why Runes: The team believes Runes is currently the best protocol for Bitcoin-native asset issuance and trading, despite many new protocols emerging. They remain open to research but are committed to Runes for now.
• Product direction:
  • New features are planned for mid-October, shaped by intensive community feedback.
  • Gaming as acquisition: Mini-games to attract users from outside crypto; on-chain randomness + simple, probability-based games.
    • Coin Flip: Live now; simple 50/50 chance game, actively used.
    • Upcoming “Pinkel” (name as heard): Targeted for October; slightly more complex yet accessible for newcomers.
  • Ecosystem structure: The games have been split into a standalone ecosystem project at Ledia.fun, but will remain organically linked to Taiki launches. Tokens that “graduate” from Taiki will have associated games (starting with Coin Flip; more coming).

State of Runes and Market Sentiment

• Runes remains early but is proving to be fertile ground for exchanges/DEXs (L1 and L2) and app-layer experimentation.
• Builders agree: The first milestone was achieving solid, usable exchanges. The next challenges are user acquisition (especially non-crypto natives), better infrastructure, and simplifying UX to meet mainstream expectations.
• Community energy is returning through initiatives like OML’s leaderboard and new product launches, which give participants reasons to engage daily.

Liquidity for OG Runes: Problems and Paths Forward

• Problem (Musing and Scott): Many OG Runes were minted via high-fee, miner-incentivized mints. Fees went to miners; teams/networks retained little/no capital for post-mint liquidity or development. As a result, they lack budgets to seed liquidity now.
• Paths forward:
  • New sustainable launch models (e.g., Radfi’s virtual mint) to prevent future repeats of fee-burning.
  • Protocol-level donations and collaborations (RichSwap + Blockmanner) that add BTC to pools, deepen liquidity, and reward LPs.
  • Better UX to attract broader capital and traders (fast swaps, minimal stuck funds).
  • Over time, as Radfi grows, it plans to accumulate reserves of OG Runes to support market-making and baseline liquidity.
  • Continual innovation (mini-games, new DeFi primitives) to draw users and external liquidity into Bitcoin L1.

UX, Branding, and Engagement

• Casino-like UX inspiration (Scott): Sounds, animations, and visual feedback keep users engaged and enjoying the product (e.g., coin explosions on mint). Radfi’s “rats” branding came from Jen (head of branding/marketing). A polished, fun interface isn’t superficial—it sustains attention and activity.
• Musing emphasized that users don’t want funds stuck in unconfirmed UTXOs. Delivering an “Ethereum-like” flow on Bitcoin L1 is critical to mainstreaming Runes DeFi.
• Barbara and attendees observed strong in-person validation at Runes Asia (Hong Kong). That energy has informed product direction (e.g., adding structured launch features at Radfi).

OML, Inspiration, and Clarifications

• OML’s leaderboard and planned activities inspired many newcomers to learn Runes and Bitcoin UX.
• Community speculation that OML is linked to Radfi: Scott clarified there’s no formal relationship; the OML team are independent builders who like using Radfi. Barbara later noted the founder goes by “Slotty” and is associated with Taproot Alpha; not part of Radfi.

Education and Onboarding

• The space encouraged educators and content creators to leverage the current attention to teach Bitcoin, Ordinals, and Runes fundamentals.
• OML’s ongoing activities provide a hook to onboard new users who then learn about wallets, fee dynamics, and trading.

Sass Terminal: What’s Cooking

• Barbara mentioned several Sass Terminal initiatives (details pending official announcements):
  • Runes bridge to Spark.
  • Swaps between Spark tokens (BTKN and related pairs referenced).
  • A hedge/long aggregator product (“UseHedge” / Hedge) teased on the new website; details forthcoming. Musing plans to follow up with Stan (Sass Terminal co-founder/dev lead).
• Collaboration: RichSwap noted integration with the Sass Terminal aggregator is “right around the corner.”

Community Voices

• Goron (aka Tandy): Strongly supportive of Radfi’s sustainable liquidity approach, calling it overdue and potentially game-saving for the Ordinals ecosystem. Reminded the audience of Bitcoin’s unique role as a permanent, immutable data layer; encouraged building beyond short-term PVP trading.
• Azim: Asked about Radfi’s relationship to OML; Scott confirmed there is none.

Near-term Timelines and Notable Milestones

• Taiki: New features and the “Pinkel” mini-game targeted around mid-October.
• RichSwap: Flash Trade with unconfirmed UTXOs re-enabled last week; protocol revenue donation activated “less than a month” ago; open-source infra and aggregation integrations in progress.
• Radfi: Ongoing work to support structured launches; Radfi-hosted Token Talk space scheduled shortly after this session.
• OML: Anticipated to host its own spaces in the future to share more details.

Key Takeaways

• Runes is still early but evolving fast. Builders are converging on three priorities: sustainable liquidity, simplified/fast UX, and broader user acquisition.
• Radfi’s combination of PSBT-based atomic swaps, 2-of-2 trading wallet, and virtual minting addresses core pain points that previously stunted growth (burned fees, no liquidity, slow UX).
• RichSwap’s CPFP-powered Flash Trade and protocol revenue donation model directly deepen liquidity and improve capital efficiency on Bitcoin L1.
• Taiki is betting on Runes and L2 gaming to attract non-crypto users, with on-chain randomness mini-games tied to token launches.
• OG Runes liquidity remains a legacy issue from earlier mint mechanics; solutions will come from a mix of new revenue models, protocol donations, improved UX, and market-making reserves as platforms scale.
• UI/UX and branding matter: engagement loops and delightful interfaces keep users active, especially in a bear or low-volume environment.
• Ecosystem alignment: Independent projects (e.g., OML) drawing inspiration from these platforms help onboard new users and educate the market, compounding growth.

Closing Notes

• The builders emphasized staying focused on Runes while remaining open to research on new protocols.
• Expect continued shipping: Taiki’s mid-October release, RichSwap infra/aggregator integrations, Radfi’s expanded Launchpad features, and Sass Terminal’s bridge/hedge initiatives.
• The path forward is step-by-step: ship, improve UX, deepen liquidity, and educate—building a sustainable Bitcoin L1 DeFi stack around Runes.