Activity on the Runes protocol has experienced a significant decline since its initial week of trading. On May 10, there was a noticeable decrease in activity, with minimal new mints and new wallets engaging with the protocol.
According to a Dune Analytics dashboard, the protocol’s fee revenue has steadily decreased. While Runes still earns hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees daily on the Bitcoin blockchain, the total fees have only exceeded $1 million twice in the past 12 days, indicating a downward trend.
Runes, created by Casey Rodarmor, the creator of Ordinals, is a new Bitcoin token standard that allows users to create fungible tokens on the blockchain. Ordinals, on the other hand, enabled nonfungible tokens on Bitcoin.
The Runes protocol made its debut on April 20, coinciding with the latest Bitcoin halving event. This launch sparked a frenzy among investors, resulting in a surge in transaction fees and record-breaking profits for Bitcoin miners. During the first week alone, more than $135 million in fees were generated.
Data from Dune Analytics reveals that until April 24, the majority of transactions on the Bitcoin network were related to Runes. On April 23, Runes accounted for 81.3% of transactions, pushing down the Bitcoin transaction share to 18.15%, with Ordinals and BRC-20 transactions each accounting for 0.1%.
However, Runes transactions steadily declined over the next nine days until May 2. From May 3 onwards, Runes began to recover, reclaiming a transaction share above 60% on May 4 and 5.
The mining community warmly welcomed the increase in fees, as their earnings had significantly decreased following the Bitcoin halving. In May, the total revenue for Bitcoin miners dropped to under $30 million per day.
Similar to Ordinals, Runes introduced a new token standard on the Bitcoin blockchain. Bitcoin recently processed its one billionth transaction.
Runes has already achieved notable success, with several Rune collections having market capitalizations in the hundreds of millions of dollars, according to data from Magic Eden.
Moreover, during an Ordinals event in Hong Kong, Rodarmor hinted at an innovative audioreactive generative art project, further highlighting the platform’s potential.
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