Bitcoin (BTC) has completed its fourth halving, and miners' block rewards have been halved to 3.125 BTC. However, demand for Bitcoin has increased, and the average transaction fee on the same day soared to $127.9. It is about six times higher than the average fee on the previous day.
The reason for this increased demand is the existence of the new Bitcoin standard "Runes" protocol, which was launched at the same time as the halving.
Runes is a new protocol developed by Casey Rodarmor, the developer of the Bitcoin standard "Ordinals," which attracted a lot of attention last year. It was launched at the same time as the halving and attracted a lot of attention, which caused the network to become very congested. As a result, transaction fees reached an all-time high, bringing miners a large amount of transaction fee revenue.
Bitcoin miners' total revenue, including block rewards and transaction fees, recorded a record high of $107.8 million (about 16.7 billion yen) in one day.
The new standard Runes makes it possible to issue tokens on the Bitcoin blockchain. Currently, tokens can be issued as "BRC-20" through Ordinals, but Runes is an improved version of this.
Ordinals became popular because it allowed the issuance of NFTs on Bitcoin. However, it also faces issues such as database pressure and rising fees. According to Rodermoh, Runes was designed with a greater emphasis on efficiency than Ordinals.
Also, while token standards such as BRC-20 rely on off-chain data, Runes is on-chain, so it uses the UTXO (Unspent Transaction Output) model.
UTXO manages unused transaction balances, which in Bitcoin terms refers to the amount of BTC that has not been used. In BRC-20, this UTXO increased and put pressure on the database, but Runes suppresses this, leading to reduced fees, etc.
Like BRC-20, Runes requires fees to be paid in Bitcoin to create new tokens. Runes is likely to be used primarily for the creation of meme coins, and the resulting speculative demand is thought to have caused transaction fees to soar.
Runes' launch was timed to coincide with Bitcoin's halving. Last September, Rodermoh announced the Rune Protocol project. He stated that the introduction of Rune will bring liquidity, technology, and attention back to Bitcoin from other cryptocurrencies.
Reference:Runes Overview
Image: Shutterstock
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