Bitcoin Transaction Fees Outpace Ethereum Ahead of Halving: A New Era for Miners
[TL; DR]
Between 15 and 17 April the daily Bitcoin fees were more than the Ethereum fees.
The Runes protocol enables creators to develop fungible tokens on the bitcoin blockchain.
The 2024 halving event slashed the mining reward from 6.25 to 3.125 BTC per block.
Introduction
The recent bitcoin halving event which reduced the mining rewards from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC per block means the miners’ revenue would decrease depending on the price of BTC and the transaction fees. Nevertheless, there are new revenue dynamics on the bitcoin blockchain following the introduction of ordinal inions in January 2023 and Runes before the recent bitcoin halving.
The focus of this article is to compare the transaction fees between the bitcoin and Ethereum networks within the third week of April. We will also discuss the impact of the halving event on the miners’ rewards. Finally, we shall compare the Runes protocol and ordinals protocol as well as their collective effect on the bitcoin network transaction fees.
Bitcoin Fees Surpassing Ethereum’s for Three Days
The cryptocurrency sector has witnessed a significant shift as the bitcoin daily transaction fees surpassed that of Ethereum for three consecutive days before the 20 April halving event. The rise in activity on the bitcoin blockchain due to the approaching halving event and the launch of Runes, a new token standard on the network, led to the spike in bitcoin transaction fees.
Specifically, between 15 and 17 April the Bitcoin miners collected more transaction fees than their Ethereum counterparts, which became a unique occurrence for the competing blockchains. As an example, on 17 April alone the Bitcoin miners earned $7.47million in network fees while the Ethereum stakers notched $7.31 million.
On the 15th and 16th of April, the bitcoin fees were higher than the Ethereum fees by $3.5 million and $1.1 million respectively. Mitrade captured the increase in bitcoin fees within the cited period as the following graph shows.
The Spike in Bitcoin Fees Three Days before the Halving Event: Mitrade
As the above graph denotes, there was a sharp spike in bitcoin fees within the third week of April. Another source, eSatoshiClub also indicates that on the 20th of April, the date of bitcoin halving the transaction fees also spiked.
Source: x.com
Generally, though, the average figures of the transaction fees tilted in favour of Ethereum. For example, the average transaction fees for Ethereum and bitcoin for the seven-day period that ended on 17 April were $8.55 million and $7.57 million, respectively. With respect to transaction fees, Ethereum remains the leader in relation to the bitcoin vs. Ethereum rivalry. The following table shows the daily average transaction fees for several blockchains including Ethereum, Bitcoin, Aave and Uniswap.
Blockchain Average Daily Transaction Fees - Cointelegraph
As observed in the table above, Ethereum has the largest “Day AVG Fees”, followed by bitcoin and Uniswap. Of course, Aave and Kyberswap’s transaction fees are also relatively high.
It is important to realize that the bitcoin fees depend on the current demand for block space as well as the size of the transactions. By comparison, the recent Bitcoin fees have, generally, been lower than in the previous months due to the downturn in the values of BRC-20 tokens, including Sats (SATS) and Ordinals (ORDI). In the meantime, the shift of the traders’ focus from ORDI to Runes may determine future changes in Bitcoin transaction fees and the resultant miners’ revenue.
Bitcoin Halving Event and Its Impact on Miners’ Rewards
The uptick in Bitcoin transaction fees came as good news to the bitcoin miners whose revenue stream was affected by the decrease in block rewards following the halving event. Before the bitcoin halving event 900 BTC worth around $57.2 million were being mined per day. Now, only 450 BTC per day are being mined in the post-halving period.
This implies that the sustainability of the bitcoin network will mostly depend on the bitcoin fees. The introduction of Runes on bitcoin, SATS and Ordinals will likely stabilize transaction fees on the network and sustain the miners.
Competitive Landscape with Runes and Ordinals
As hinted above, the innovations occurring on the bitcoin blockchain will likely result in intrinsic bitcoin blockchain sustainability. The digital assets that have been recently introduced on the blockchain including ordinals Inions and Runes will likely increase activity on the network which may result in higher transaction fees and miners revenue alike.
First-off, there is no doubt that the introduction of NFT-like “Ordinals in early 2023 has helped to increase the Bitcoin fees. Now, the launch of Runes, a new bitcoin token standard, will further bolster revenue generation for the miners. The Runes will enable the development of fungible tokens like memecoins on bitcoin which may attract many community driven crypto projects to the blockchain.
Already, the innovator of Runes and Ordinals, Casey Rodarmor, has talked highly about the new bitcoin standard tokens. For example, he said that the Runes are fully UTXO-based, meaning that they will not lead to network spam and congestion that have been associated with Ordinals.
Essentially, the Runes will help to diversify decentralized finance applications on the bitcoin blockchain. Such DeFi protocols will help to stabilize the network fees as well as increase its activity. On the other hand, if there is a sustained Bitcoin price increase the miners’ revenue will rise remarkably.
Comparison between Runes and Ordinals comparison
Now that we have been discussing the impact of Runes and Ordinals on bitcoin fees and activity, let’s briefly compare them. The Runes protocol is more efficient than the Ordinals protocol when creating tokens on the Bitcoin network. It is a very suitable Bitcoin standard token for memecoins and similar digital assets. In his post on X, Rodarmor made that point clear, as the following image shows.
Source: x.com
Simply stated, Runes is a protocol that enables creators to mint fungible tokens directly on the bitcoin blockchain. After creating fungible tokens the developers can sell or trade them as they like.
Basically, it is easier to create fungible tokens using Runes than the Ordinals protocol. Runes simply use an Unspent Transaction Output (UTXO) . On the other hand, the ordinals protocol requires three transactions to create and transfer a token.
Also, Runes reduce blockchain bloat while promoting conscientious token production. The next table gives a summary of the differences between Runes Protocol and BRC-20.
Source – CCNEducation
Due to the simplicity of its token production process some analysts believe that several Ordinals projects may move to the Runes protocol to launch their airdrops. In all, this may increase bitcoin fees as well as introducing a new layer of functionality on the blockchain.
How Runes will affect the Bitcoin Eco
The Runes Protocol enables the creation of memecoins on the bitcoin blockchain. This will likely boost bitcoin’s network activity and revenue generation. Already, we know that some memecoins like BONK, PEPE and DOGE attract much attention on the Solana and Ethereum blockchains. Some of these memecoins have also become the backbones of such networks.
The Runes protocol makes it possible to have a flourishing DeFi on the bitcoin blockchain. The fungibility of the RUNES means that they can be split and later re-joined. Notably, the Runes can be integrated with lending and borrowing platforms which form the foundation of the DeFi economy. More importantly, Runes are compatible with both the Lightning network and the Bitcoin mainnet. What this means is that people can bridge Runes to the lightning network and vice versa.
Conclusion
In a period that stretched from 15 to 17 April the bitcoin fees surpassed the Ethereum ones, giving hope that Runes and Ordinals will help to sustain the blockchain. Nevertheless, Ethereum maintained its lead in terms of the average daily transaction fees. The Runes protocol which is compatible with both the Lightning network and the Bitcoin mainnet, enables coin creators to develop fungible tokens.
