Runes, a new token standard on the Bitcoin blockchain, has made up more than two-thirds of transactions on Bitcoin since it was launched following the network’s halving event on April 20.
More than 2.38 million Runes transactions have been processed, accounting for 68% of all Bitcoin transactions made since it launched on April 20, according to a Dune Analytics dashboard shared by blockchain research firm Crypto Koryo.
Ordinary peer-to-peer Bitcoin (BTC) transactions, BRC-20s, Ordinals and Runes were included in the total transaction count.
Runes had its biggest day on April 23 with more than 750,000 transactions, though the count more than halved the next day at 312,000 transactions.
Much of the initial demand at block 840,000 came from memecoin and nonfungible token enthusiasts competing to inscribe and etch “rare satoshis” via the Runes protocol.
As a result, Runes transactions contributed to nearly 70% of miner fees on the halving day. Since then, the daily figure fluctuated between 33% and 69%.
However, industry pundits are also split on whether Runes will provide a sustainable revenue stream for Bitcoin miners, and there’s already a disparity between the numbers of Rune transactions and miner fees earned from Runes.
The new protocol, launched by Ordinals inventor Casey Rodarmor, has been marketed as a more efficient way to create new tokens on the Bitcoin network when compared to the BRC-20 token standard, an Ordinals-based method for creating Bitcoin-based tokens.
Related: Bitcoin fees crash after record daily average of $128 on halving day
However, not everyone is happy with the amount of block space that has been taken up by Runes transactions in recent days.
Among those critics is Nikita Zhavoronkov, a lead developer at blockchain search engine Blockchair, who believes Bitcoin has “completely ceased” becoming a peer-to-peer electronic cash system — what its pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, originally envisioned.
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