Since its launch on April 20, 2024, the Runes token standard has accounted for more than two-thirds of transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain, according to the Dune Analytics dashboard shared by blockchain research firm Crypto Koryo.
Rapid success
Since its launch, over 2.38 million Runes transactions have been processed, representing 68% of all Bitcoin transactions since its release. Ordinary Bitcoin, BRC-20s, Ordinals and Runes transactions have been included in the total transaction count.
A record-breaking day
On April 23, 2024, Runes had its most productive day with over 750,000 transactions, although the number of transactions was over 312,000 the following day. Initial demand at the 840,000 block was mainly due to the enthusiasm of memecoins and non-fungible tokens (NFT) enthusiasts proficient at registering and engraving “rare satoshis” via the Runes protocol.
A significant contribution to mining costs
Runes transactions contributed almost 70% of the mining fees on the day of the halving, which has been described as a significant contribution to miners’ income. However, there are differences of opinion about the ability of Runes to offer a stable income for Bitcoin miners, and there is already a discrepancy between the number of Runes transactions and the mining fees received from Runes.
A more efficient protocol
The Runes protocol was developed by Casey Rodarmor, the inventor of Ordinals, and has been touted as a more efficient method of creating new tokens on the Bitcoin chain compared to the BRC-20 standard. This method is based on Ordinals for creating Bitcoin tokens.
Criticism and controversy
However, Runes’ rapid success was not without its critics. Nikita Zhavoronkov, a lead developer of Blockchair. This is a blockchain search engine, who said that Bitcoin “has completely ceased” to become a p2p electronic money system as imagined by its pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto.
