The recent launch of the Runes protocol on Bitcoin has spurred an increase in activity on the oldest blockchain.
Glassnode data shows that the number of daily transactions on Bitcoin hit a record 926,842 on April 23, which is more than three times higher than the average daily transaction count between 2017 and 2023.
Bitcoin has already been experiencing an increase in activity since May 2023, when Ordinals and the BRC-20 token standard became more popular. Interestingly, while the number of regular BTC transactions has remained at a similar level for many years, the recent excess in transaction count can be attributed to Ordinals.
Also, the recent surge in transactions has been driven by the Runes protocol. Runes provides an alternative to Ordinals, enabling developers to mint fungible tokens with a smaller footprint.
Dune data shows that Runes accounted for over 81% of the record daily transaction count at the end of April, with over 750,000 transactions on Bitcoin attributed to them on that day.
Since its launch, Runes has added over 140,000 new users every day, with the cumulative number of active wallets approaching the 2 million mark at the beginning of May.
Dune data shows that BRC-20 tokens have dominated Bitcoin transactions on several occasions since the beginning of 2024, but Runes showed an ever-higher dominance ratio at the end of April.
Since launch, Runes have generated over 2165 BTC in fees, equivalent to $128 million at today’s prices.
The most popular tokens on Runes are meme coins, which have become the main driving force on other blockchain networks as well, including Base and TON.
Data from UniSat shows that there are already over 60,000 Rune tokens minted on Bitcoin.
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