According to CryptoPotato, the Runes protocol, which debuted during the recent Bitcoin halving, has seen a significant decrease in activity. Initially, the protocol, which enables users to create fungible tokens on the Bitcoin blockchain, experienced a surge in transactions. However, activity has since declined, particularly on May 10. Data from a Dune Analytics dashboard shows that the protocol's fee revenue has been steadily decreasing since its launch. Despite generating notable fees daily, surpassing $1 million only twice in the last 12 days indicates a downward trend.
The Runes protocol was created by Ordinals creator Casey Rodarmor and entered the market on April 20, coinciding with the Bitcoin halving. This launch sparked a frenzy among investors, leading to an increase in transaction fees and record-breaking earnings for Bitcoin miners, exceeding $135 million in costs during the first week alone. However, the initial excitement has since waned. Runes-related transactions dominated the Bitcoin network until April 24, with the protocol claiming an 81.3% transaction share on April 23. This dominance gradually decreased over the following days, reaching a low point on May 2 before showing signs of recovery from May 3 onwards. Despite this, activity levels have not returned to their initial highs.
The decline in Runes activity comes at a time when Bitcoin miners are dealing with reduced earnings. In May, total revenue for miners dropped to under $30 million per day. Despite the slowdown, Runes has achieved notable success, with several Rune collections boasting market capitalizations in the hundreds of millions of dollars, according to data from Magic Eden. Runes, like Ordinals, enable different token standards on the Bitcoin blockchain. They leverage Bitcoin’s UTXO model and the OP_RETURN opcode to offer a more efficient tokenization solution than the BRC20 standard, leading to more meme coin trading activity on the largest blockchain. The Bitcoin network also recently processed its one billionth transaction, a significant milestone resulting from the increase in daily transactions over the past month, caused by the introduction of new protocols such as Ordinals, Runes, and the BRC-20 token standard. Developer Casey Rodarmor, who also created Bitcoin Ordinals, recently teased an audioreactive generative art project at an Ordinals event in Hong Kong.