Bitcoin Runes have accumulated over 2,500 BTC in transaction fees within two months, highlighting the growth of Bitcoin-native decentralized finance (DeFi). The Runes protocol, which facilitates the issuance of fungible tokens on the Bitcoin network, has generated 2,513 BTC in fees, valued at over $163 million according to Dune data.
source:cointelegraph
This milestone, achieved two months after the protocol’s launch during the April 2024 Bitcoin halving, underscores ongoing interest in Bitcoin-native DeFi, also known as BTCFi. The additional transaction fees from protocols like Runes provide a significant support for Bitcoin miners post-halving, following the reduction of block rewards from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC.
Bitcoin Runes have quickly become the leading standard for issuing fungible tokens on the Bitcoin network. According to Dune data, Runes-related transactions accounted for 12.2% of total Bitcoin transactions, compared to 5% for BRC-20 transactions and 0.6% for Ordinals inscriptions. Regular BTC transactions made up over 82% of the total.
As of June 17, there were 9,567 Runes-related transactions daily, outnumbering 3,938 BRC-20 transactions and 474 Ordinals-related transactions, with regular Bitcoin transactions at 64,620. Runes have surpassed BRC-20 tokens in on-chain activity since their introduction in April 2024.
The rise in transaction fees from Bitcoin Runes is beneficial for Bitcoin miners, as noted by Nazar Khan, co-founder and COO of TeraWulf. Khan explained that the increased transaction fees have positively impacted the hash price, particularly in the first 24-30 hours after the halving. Despite a subsequent decrease, transaction fees remain higher than the 2023 average. With the fixed issuance of the rest of the Bitcoin block reward, transaction fees represent a crucial variable for miners.
