Bitcoin Runes collects more than 2,500 BTC in payments in less than 2 months

Bitcoin Runes have collected more than 2,500 Bitcoin (BTC) worth of transaction fees in less than two months, demonstrating the growth of Bitcoin-native decentralized finance (DeFi).

Runes, a new protocol for mining tokens on the Bitcoin network, has generated a total of 2,513 bitcoins (BTC) since its launch, worth more than $163 million, according to Dune data.

In the year The April 2024 Bitcoin halving occurred two months after the launch of the Runes protocol, indicating continued demand for Bitcoin-native DeFi or BTCFi.

Additional transaction fees from protocols like Runes could extend a valuable lifeline for Bitcoin miners after Bitcoin block rewards were cut from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC.

Related: Bitcoin Breaks 18-Month Hashrate Growth: Are BTC Miners Catching Up?

Bitcoin Runes is more than BRC-20 tokens and Ordinals

Bitcoin Runes is becoming the primary standard for issuing funky tokens on the world's first blockchain network.

Looking at the transaction distribution, Runes-related transactions account for 12.2%, BRC-20 transactions account for 5%, and ordinary texts account for 0.6% of all transactions on the Bitcoin network.

According to Dune data, more than 82% of transactions are regular BTC transactions as of June 17.

In terms of daily transaction counts, there were 9,567 Runes-related transactions, with 3,938 BRC-20 transactions and 474 Runes-related transactions. Regular Bitcoin transactions stopped at 64,620.

Runes have been doing more on-chain activity than BRC-20 tokens since their launch in April 2024.

Related: Corporate adoption is in the ‘amateur league' despite Bitcoin ETFs

Runes: Lifeline for Bitcoin Miners

Nazar Khan, co-founder and CEO of Terawolf, said the increase in transaction fees from Bitcoin Runes is providing a lifeline to Bitcoin miners.

Khan exclusively told Cointelegraph:

“The runes increased the transaction fees significantly, so if anything the hash rate increased in the first 24-30 hours. [after the halving]. Since then, we have seen transaction fees decrease, but they are still very high compared to average fees in 2023.

Transaction fees are a “wild card” for Bitcoin miners, as the rest of Bitcoin's block reward is a fixed allocation, according to Khan.

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