Changelog

2026-04-29 v0.3.0 (Draft)

• Replaced the abstract Keystone UTXO lineage with a Keystone Ordinal: the minting authority is an Ordinals inscription on the first sat of the etching output. The inscription ID serves as the permanent global identifier for the rune's minting authority.
• Removed the output index 0 recreation requirement for Keystone operations. The Keystone UTXO after an operation is determined by standard ordinal transfer rules.
• Authority transfer is now a standard inscription transfer. No special transaction structure is required.
• Updated metadata model to use inscription content and reinscription for versioned metadata.
• Added Ordinal protection as a security consideration.

2025-12-04 v0.2.0 (Draft)

• Added explicit Keystone Flag tag requirements to ensure backward compatibility with existing Runes implementations.
• Clarified Keystone UTXO lineage semantics and how clients can recompute supply from the Keystone chain.
• Refined the definition of valid and invalid mint events for Keystone governed runes.
• Distinguished official Keystone anchored burns from unanchored lost supply.
• Documented recommended governance patterns for Keystone scripts, including multisig and key rotation.
• Clarified SPV verification scope and assumptions.
• Stated that metadata and RWA specific schemas are layered standards built on top of Keystone.

Overview

The Runes Keystone Extension introduces an optional mechanism that enables unbounded supply issuance and controlled mint authority for specific runes on Bitcoin Layer 1. This extension preserves full backward compatibility with the existing Runes protocol. Runestone encoding, cenotaph semantics, and existing indexing rules remain unchanged. The extension is strictly opt in at the level of each rune. Legacy clients that do not understand Keystone simply ignore the additional metadata and continue to apply the base Runes semantics.

A rune may designate an Ordinals inscription as its Keystone. Only transactions that spend the Keystone inscription's UTXO may mint or burn supply. The Keystone inscription's current location is tracked using standard ordinal transfer rules, requiring no additional tracking mechanism beyond what the ord indexer already provides.

Motivation

The current Runes protocol supports premined assets and capped open minting, but does not natively support controlled issuance or dynamic supply management. Stablecoins, RWA tokens, institutional on chain assets, and regulated instruments all require: