Transaction fees on Bitcoin have returned to Ethereum’s levels following the frenzy surrounding the launch of the Runes protocol after the halving.
The seven-day moving average of daily Bitcoin transaction fees peaked at $25.8 million on April 24, over five times Ethereum’s daily transaction fees at the time. However, it dropped to $4.1 million on Wednesday, matching Ethereum’s daily transaction fee average.
Similarly, average individual transaction fees on Bitcoin hit $40 on April 24, ten times higher than Ethereum. The seven-day moving average fell to $8.60 on Wednesday, still more than double Ethereum’s average of $3.40.
After Bitcoin’s fourth halving at block 840,000, which generated $2.4 million in fees, far exceeding the approximately $200,000 worth of block subsidy reward, bitcoin saw a record 104-block run of transaction fee rewards higher than the subsidy, according to the Bitcoin explorer Mempool.
While transaction fee rewards have since decreased, they still make up around 13% of total block rewards on a seven-day moving average basis, compared to around 3% before the halving. Much of this activity can be attributed to the hype around Runes, a new fungible token standard for Bitcoin launched at the halving, which generated over $135 million in fees for miners in its first week.
Developed by Ordinals creator Casey Rodarmor, the Runes protocol offers a more efficient solution for creating tokens on Bitcoin compared to BRC-20 tokens that use Ordinals inscriptions.
Data from the Runes marketplace Unisat shows that around 65,000 Runes tokens have been minted to date, driving demand for network blockspace and subsequently network fees. Among the tokens under the Runes standard, the most notable is DOG, which has the highest market cap at around $350 million, according to Magic Eden data.
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