The Rune protocol, which was launched in sync with the Bitcoin halving, has ignited the market, causing a surge in transaction fees on the Bitcoin network. The magnitude of the fee increase has even surpassed the impact of the halving of block rewards, with the total block reward at one point exceeding 2.6 million USD.
In conjunction with the Bitcoin halving, the Rune protocol has gone live and is causing a surge in transaction fees on the Bitcoin network. As of the deadline, the total block reward for miners exceeded 17 BTC (over 1 million USD), and even reached 40.751 BTC (over 2.6 million USD) at one point. The co-founder of F2Pool, the world’s largest mining pool, tweeted, “This is not a Bitcoin ‘halving,’ it’s a doubling.”
The high-priority fee on the Bitcoin network has surpassed 185 mBTC/vB. According to mempool data, the transaction fee on the Bitcoin network for high-priority transactions briefly exceeded 2,000 Sat, reaching 2,084 Sat (185.21 USD)/vB. Although it has since fallen, it remains significantly higher than usual. The fee for no priority is 20 Sat (1.79 USD)/vB, for low priority is 942 Sat (84.3 USD)/vB, for medium priority is 1,099 Sat (158.82 USD)/vB, and for high priority is 1,190 Sat (106.49 USD)/vB.
Leonidas, the developer of Ordinls and founder of Runestone, stated that the meme coin DOG•GO•TO•THE•MOON, airdropped to Runestone, was included in a transaction with a fee of 1,258,757 sat/vB. As of the deadline, the minimum fee required to mint runes through Luminex was 1,071 sats/vB.
The average transaction fee on the Bitcoin network is currently close to 19 USD, according to the latest data from Bitinfocharts, reaching a high of over 24 USD recently. Meanwhile, data from The Block reveals that the transaction fee on the Bitcoin network has increased over four times from a 7-day moving average of 4.11 USD at the beginning of this month to the current 16.7 USD. Although the current average fee has not reached the historical high of over 30 USD during the Ordinals and BRC20 hype period last year, the current fee level is still significant.
In contrast to the Bitcoin network’s hot market, Ethereum has been relatively quiet recently. Since April 11th, the transaction fees on the Bitcoin network have surpassed the average transaction fees on Ethereum (currently at 6.74 USD), and according to Etherscan, the current Ethereum Gas is as low as 6 gwei, with a median of 11 gwei in recent days, the lowest point in the past 6 months.
The Bitcoin network’s transaction fees are approaching the peak of the Ordinals/BRC20 hype.