Bitcoin Halving Reduces Transaction Fees, Runes Protocol Aimed at Boosting Defi

The cost of sending transactions on Bitcoin has significantly decreased after the recent BTC halving. On-chain analytics provider Mempool.space reported that BTC gas fees have dropped to around $9.51 for low-priority transactions and $10.07 for medium-priority transactions on the Bitcoin network. High-priority transactions are now costing around $10.44, a considerable decrease from the fees seen immediately after the halving. Previously, participants had to pay over $146 for medium-priority transactions and more than $170 for high-priority transactions.

Following the much-anticipated halving, BTC’s price remained relatively stable, gaining around 2.4% in the past seven days to trade at approximately $66,000. This code change, implemented by Satoshi Nakamoto, was aimed at increasing scarcity and reducing token inflation.

During the pre-halving period, one of the main concerns was the potential decrease in revenue for miners due to the reduction in block rewards. Casey Rodarmor’s Runes protocol was introduced as a solution to this issue, offering users the ability to create UTXO-based fungible assets on Bitcoin’s blockchain. This protocol was expected to boost decentralized finance (defi) on the largest blockchain network in the world.

Bitcoin Runes is an improvement on the BRC-2O token standard created by the pseudonymous developer Domo, which was inspired by Rodarmor’s Ordinal protocol. However, days after the halving, the Runestone NFT collection saw a nearly 50% decrease in its floor price value. According to MagicEden, the average cost of a Runestone dropped from 0.073 BTC to 0.035 BTC, indicating reduced interest in the concept following the initial hype.

Overall, the recent BTC halving has led to a significant decrease in transaction fees on the Bitcoin network, providing more affordable options for users. Additionally, the introduction of the Runes protocol aims to enhance decentralized finance capabilities on the blockchain, although initial interest seems to have waned in the days following the halving.