On Apr. 20, Bitcoin managed to generate a staggering $78.3 million worth of fees.
For comparison, Ethereum comes in a distant second place with $3.2 million.
The massive uptick came after the creators of Ordinals launched Bitcoin Runes following the halving event. The protocol makes it possible to create fungible tokens atop the leading blockchain.
Lucas Outumuro, researcher at IntoTheBlock, described the launch of Runes, as "absolutely insane." He explains that the $80 million in daily fees is approximately four times larger than the previous all-time high that was set all the way back in December 2017.
During the ordinals, the average transaction fee was $30. However, now, it has peaked at $128.
Moreover, miners are now earning record revenues despite the recent halving event despite the fact that block rewards have dropped 50%. On Saturday, they managed to earn more than $100 million. Prior to that, the consensus was that miners would experience short-term strain after the halvening, with prominent miners stocks dropping more than 50% from their record highs. Outumuro believes that traditional finance simply was not aware of the launch of Runes.
"It's been less than 48 hours since the launch of Runes and it has already made an impact of historic proportions," the analyst sums up.
However, it remains whether this hype surrounding Runes is going to persist. So far, it seems like retail is sitting on the sidelines based on the fact that the number of retail addresses has reached a new low. However, Runes might potentially emerge as a solution to Bitcoin's long-standing security problem despite attracting some pushback within its conservative community.
Arman Shirinyan
