The Runes protocol on the Bitcoin blockchain is trying to maintain its share of transactions. Let us remember that after its launch on April 20, the protocol dominated network traffic on various days. As a result of this, transaction fees and mining income recorded a daily figure of $107.7 million for the first time.
Transactions related to the Runes protocol accounted for more than 50% of all Bitcoin transactions until April 24. The peak occurred on April 23 and occupied 81.3% of the capacity, however, by May 2 this figure dropped to 11.1%. The excitement around Runes intensified again between May 4 and May 6, but after that, activity in the protocol decreased sharply again. As of May 22, Runes accounted for only 12.7% of Bitcoin transactions. Despite such a noticeable decrease (84%) compared to record values, this is still much higher than that of the Ordinals protocol (0.7%) and BRC-20 (1.5%). The rest of the transactions went through the “good old” Bitcoin blockchain. Thanks to the launch of Runes, Ordinals and BRC-20, the number of daily transactions in the Bitcoin blockchain reached a record level of 926,000 transfers.