Bitcoin users have paid a staggering 37.7 Bitcoin (BTC) in fees, equivalent to just over $2.4 million at current prices, to secure their spot on the fourth-ever Bitcoin halving block.
At 12:09 am UTC on April 20, ViaBTC, a Bitcoin miner, produced the 840,000th block, triggering the automated protocol that reduces miner rewards by 50% from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC per block.
Block 840,000 quickly became the most coveted piece of digital real estate in Bitcoin’s history, with users collectively spending 37.67 BTC on fees, according to data from Bitcoin block explorer mempool.space.
Including the miner subsidy of 3.125 BTC, a total of 40.7 BTC, worth $2.6 million, was paid to Bitcoin miner ViaBTC for producing the halving block.
The record-breaking fees were primarily due to users rushing to inscribe and etch rare satoshis on the halving block, with much of the activity stemming from the frenzy surrounding Casey Rodmarmor’s new Runes Protocol, which went live simultaneously with the halving.
Runes have been positioned as a more efficient way to create new tokens on the Bitcoin network compared to the BRC-20 token standard. Runes leverages the Bitcoin network and pays fees in Bitcoin to create new tokens, but the major difference lies in the use of an Unspent Transaction Output (UTXO) model, which “etches” new tokens on Bitcoin, as opposed to the “inscription” account model used by Ordinals.
In a post on April 20, pseudonymous Ordinals developer Leonidas claimed that the fees on the five most recent Bitcoin blocks following block 840,000 had surpassed the Coinbase reward.
A total of $3.82 million in fees, excluding miner subsidies, was spent on the five blocks following the halving, according to aggregated data from mempool.space.
Apart from the race to inscribe the first Runes, Bitcoin mining pools were also competing to obtain the “epic” satoshi, which is the very first satoshi mined on the halving block.
On April 15, Trevor Owens, the managing partner at The Bitcoin Frontier Fund, announced a bounty of between $500,000 and $1 million to “buy out” the first Bitcoin block.
Amid the chaos, pseudonymous trader Hsaka posted a meme that captured the general sentiment towards the halving event – a momentary celebration followed by an immediate return to business as usual.
Outspoken Bitcoin critic Peter Schiff also took to social media to express his skepticism towards Bitcoiners during the halving event.
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