Bitcoin Ordinals explorer Ord.io has raised $2 million in a pre-seed funding round co-led by Bitcoin Frontier Fund and Sora Ventures to prepare for the highly anticipated launch of the Runes Protocol.
Other investors in the round included Longhash Ventures, Daxos Capital, Portal Ventures, UTXO Management, Rubik Ventures, VitalTao Capital, Antalpha Ventures, Kommune Fund, Edessa Capital, PetRock Capital, PG Capital, Shake and Bake Productions, Re7 Capital, Balaji Fund, and several angel investors.
Impending Runes Protocol launch
According to an April 17 statement shared with CryptoSlate, the capital infusion is poised to propel Ord.io beyond its current Ordinals exploration focus, enabling the platform to introduce new features and innovative products that capitalize on the impending launch of Runes — a new fungible token standard for Bitcoin that is slated to launch on the day of the halving.
Market observers believe the impending Runes launch would significantly impact Bitcoin’s ecosystem, with many comparing it to last year’s launch of the Ordinals-based BRC-20 standard.
The project’s co-founder, Leonadis, emphasized the need for the platform to be prepared for the opportunities this could bring, noting that it could significantly expand Bitcoin’s appeal to millions. He stated:
“We’re positioning ourselves to be able to serve the next generation of Bitcoiners who not only want to hold BTC but also collect JPEGs and trade memecoins… We believe that Runes and memecoins can onboard tens of millions of people to Bitcoin but we have to make sure the experience is great.”
Consequently, the new funding will enable the company to “double down on existing features” and “introduce new services and financial tools.” The funds will also go toward expanding the developer team.
Leonadis said:
“We can’t just copy-paste Ethereum or Solana to Bitcoin. That would be such a disappointing outcome. Instead, we need to embrace the values of legendary Bitcoiners like Satoshi Nakamoto, Hal Finney, and Casey Rodarmor to create something much better”
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