The activity of Loon Protocol has decreased significantly after the first week of trading. In particular, on May 10th there was a noticeable decrease in activity compared to previous periods, with very few new mints and new wallets interacting with the protocol.
According to the Dune analytics dashboard compiled by Runes Is, the protocol’s fee revenue has been steadily declining. Although Runes still earns hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees daily on the Bitcoin blockchain, total fees have only exceeded $1 million twice in the past 12 days, indicating a significant downward trend.
Runes is a new Bitcoin (BTC) token standard that allows users to create fungible tokens on the blockchain. It was created by Casey Rodarmor, the creator of Ordinals, which enables Bitcoin non-fungible tokens.
The Runes protocol has been running for three weeks since its debut on April 19th, which coincided with the latest Bitcoin halving event. Runes’ launch sparked a frenzy among investors, sending trading fees soaring and delivering a record windfall for Bitcoin miners, generating more than $135 million in fees in the first week alone.
As of April 24, rune-related transactions accounted for the majority of Bitcoin network transactions, according to data from Dune Analytics. On April 23, Runes recorded the highest transaction share at 81.3%, lowering Bitcoin (BTC) transaction share to 18.15%, while Ordinals and BRC-20 transactions recorded 0.1% each.
Rune trading volume continued to decline for 9 days until May 2nd. From May 3, rune trading began to recover. On May 4 and 5, Runes regained over 60% trade share.
Related: Bitcoin’s ordinal number, runes solve mining subsidy problem: ViaBTC
The mining community welcomed the fee increase as revenue dropped significantly following the Bitcoin halving. However, in May, total profits for Bitcoin miners fell to less than $30 million per day.
Runes, like Ordinals, unlock a new token standard on the Bitcoin blockchain, providing a more efficient tokenization solution than BRC20. This has led to a surge in transactions for Bitcoin’s memecoin, which recently processed its 1 billionth transaction.
While many platforms struggle to gain initial traction, Magic Eden’s data shows that Runes has already achieved significant success, with several Rune collections boasting market capitalizations in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Casey Rodarmor also hinted at an innovative audio-responsive generative art project at the recent Ordinals event in Hong Kong, further demonstrating the platform’s potential.
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