Bitcoin transaction fees surged more than 32% this week, reaching the highest level since August.
This sharp increase suggests that the growing interest in Rune transactions on the Bitcoin network has led to an increase in miner revenue.
Runes occupy 50% of Bitcoin block space, leading to a surge in transaction fees
According to on-chain data platform IntoTheBlock, Bitcoin miners earned a total of $5 million in transaction fees last week. The fee surge indicates increased network activity. Although Bitcoin prices have shown a trend of decreasing volatility, the major asset traded mostly between $60 million and $63 million during the reporting period.
"Bitcoin fees surged 32% this week, and despite the trend of decreasing volatility, network activity increased, according to IntoTheBlock."
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Market analysts attribute the fee increase to the resurgence of Rune transactions. Decentralized capital markets protocol Alkimiya reported that Rune transactions occupied over 50% of Bitcoin's block space last week. This led to a maximum increase of up to 65% in the average BTC median fee rate.
"During this period (October 8 - October 15), we experienced 4 fee spikes. The highest median fee rate was 50 sat/vB. These 4 spikes were driven by 4 different Rune mints. As these were independent events, the impact on the base fee rate is minimal, and the impact dissipates very quickly after the minting is done," Alkimiya stated.
Runes are a Bitcoin token standard developed by Ordinals creator Casey Rodarmor. They allow users to create fungible tokens on the network, addressing the criticism of high token creation costs in the BRC-20 standard. Runes also provide a more efficient solution for creating and managing tokens on the Bitcoin network.
According to data from Dune Analytics, Rune transactions accounted for over 15% of all Bitcoin network transactions last week. On October 7, Rune-related transactions made up 19.4% of total BTC transactions, dropping to 10.7% on October 9, and then rising again to 13.6% on October 12.
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Meanwhile, the surge in Rune-related activity coincides with an increase in demand for Rune tokens. According to Magic Eden, tokens such as DOG, RSIC, and BILLION have seen significant price increases in the past 24 hours. This new interest emerged as Magic Eden announced plans to launch new exchange features for Rune assets.
