Bitcoin Runes, a non-fungible token (NFT) protocol launched in April 2023, has facilitated over 16.4 million transactions and generated greater than $162 million in charges since its launch.
This info comes from Dune Analytics, the place knowledge reveals a major improve in transaction exercise between April and June.
On April 23, Bitcoin Runes noticed its busiest day, recording 753,584 transactions inside 24 hours. Though transaction volumes flattened in July, August noticed a renewed uptick, with over 255,000 transactions recorded on August 23.
Runes was developed by Casey Rodarmor, who can also be the creator of Bitcoin Ordinals. The protocol was launched to supply a extra environment friendly methodology for creating and buying and selling NFTs on the Bitcoin community.
By permitting extra info to be connected to Bitcoin transactions, Runes can create specialised tokens, equivalent to loyalty factors, with out inflicting congestion on the community. This improves Bitcoin’s performance for varied functions and positions Runes as a key competitor to each Ordinals and the BRC-20 protocol.
For the reason that launch of Runes, Ordinals have skilled a pointy decline in transaction numbers. After Runes entered the scene, Ordinals recorded roughly 3,000 transactions per day, a 98% drop from their peak of over 200,000 every day transactions in February. The BRC-20 protocol noticed the same decline. Whereas it reached a peak of 468,233 transactions in January, after April, its highest every day transaction rely was round 70,000.
These declines could not solely be on account of competitors from Runes. The broader NFT market has confronted a downturn, and the sooner pleasure surrounding Bitcoin’s halving occasion has additionally pale.
The passion from the halving had initially pushed investor expectations and optimism. Runes capitalized on this era, producing $135 million in transaction charges throughout its debut week, considerably impacting Bitcoin transaction volumes and driving up charges.
