According to CryptoPotato, Bitcoin layer 2 solution tokens have shown superior performance compared to Bitcoin (BTC) following the recent halving of the mining reward on the blockchain. These tokens have seen a surge of 5% to 20% since the event, outpacing the top cryptocurrency by market capitalization. The market cap for Bitcoin layer 2 solutions stands at $4.3 billion, marking a 5.6% increase in the past 24 hours, with a trading volume of $184 million.
Stacks (STX), a Bitcoin layer 2 solution, has been among the top-performing cryptocurrencies in the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko data. The STX token has surged almost 20% to $2.87 since the halving event. In contrast, Bitcoin has not seen significant growth, with the token up slightly over 4.5% to $66,046 since the halving event, 1.7% over the last 24 hours, and down 0.8% over the last 7 days. Bitcoin’s price experienced significant volatility last week, dropping from over $66,800 to below $60,000, but has since recovered.
Other layer 2 tokens, such as Elastos’ ELA token and SatoshiVM’s SAVM, have also seen gains of 11% and 5%, respectively, since the halving. Other altcoins have observed slight daily gains, except for TON, which has experienced a significant double-digit decline despite Tether’s announcement of expanding to the TON blockchain. Bitcoin layer 2 solutions address blockchain scalability and transaction speed limitations by operating on the Bitcoin blockchain and processing transactions off the main chain.
On April 20, when the halving occurred and the Runes protocol launched, Bitcoin transaction fees reached an average of $128.45, according to ycharts data. This figure is over six times higher than the average fee rate the day prior and approximately double the previous record set three years ago. The fee surge can be attributed to the launch of the Runes protocol, which enables users to “etch” and mint tokens on the Bitcoin blockchain. The introduction of Runes prompted speculators to rush into minting tokens and trading meme coins, leading to increased transaction activity and, subsequently, higher transaction costs. However, the fees have since come down, and the transaction fees dropped to $34.8 on April 21. According to data from Ord.io, the total number of Runes inscriptions on the Bitcoin blockchain has already reached 3,700.