About a week after the halving, Bitcoin Loon has achieved a milestone as observers and participants alike ponder the implications of the new normal.
Bitcoin’s (BTC) Runes protocol recorded $135 million in transaction fees on the cryptocurrency’s largest blockchain, according to the Dune Analytics dashboard. According to on-chain data, tokens issued under the standard cost more than 2,100 BTC within a week.
Casey Rodarmor, developer of the Ordinals protocol, developed Bitcoin Runes to improve on the BRC-20 standard, known as the bootstrap definition for the BTC network.
Runes allows users to leverage BTC’s UTXO format to execute more efficient transactions in BTC and mint more optimized tokens. The concept was launched during the halving and has been a source of on-chain BTC activity ever since.
Per Bitcoin Wallet Unisat, users minted nearly 11,000 runes, a surge in blockchain participation that led to a surge in BTC gas fees immediately following the halving. However, fees fell again just days after Bitcoin’s four-year code transition, which saw block mining rewards reduced by 50%.
Analyst: Bitcoin Runes Could Benefit the Network in the Long-Term
Bitcoin’s launch at a block high of 840,000 initially caused a surge in BTC transaction costs, but analysts do not expect this effect to remain long-term. Bitcoin researcher Jade ARdinals shared with crypto.news that the additional load on the BTC network was caused by the token creation aspect, i.e. mints.
The researcher explained that speculation about the rune triggered mass mining, adding an “artificial” burden to BTC block space. Analysts believe this pressure will subside, but argue that the Runes standard will attract more developers to Bitcoin.
“Broadly speaking, the adoption of Loon will have a positive long-term impact on the network in general, and the hype around issuance via airdrop will likely die down as the most popular tokens released during the halving are minted.”
Jade ARdinals for runes
Loon has already captured much of BTC’s on-chain activity. Crypto Koryo’s Dune dashboard reported that Runes tokens accounted for 45% of all Bitcoin transactions on April 25th.