Disclosure: The views and opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author and do not represent the views and opinions of the crypto.news editorial.
bitcoin is no longer boring or out of reach for retail; It's fun and exciting and ready to usher in a new era of innovation. For years, bitcoin has been considered a store of value, a means of preserving capital. This meant using the bitcoin blockchain to purchase btc and then moving it to cold storage, completely forgetting about the world's largest network.
As a result, while ethereum, Solana and other blockchains have been bustling with activity, raking in billions of dollars in fees, the bitcoin blockchain has remained relatively dormant, with little fun, activity, fees or innovation, save for their prices increasing. . And as a trillion-dollar asset class, most retail can't even think about getting into btc.
But now the tide is turning and, for the first time, bitcoin is ready to experience all that and more. This will not only attract more people, encourage adoption, and encourage innovation, but will also help the bitcoin blockchain find a solution to the problem of its network security.
This new era of change is being ushered in by Runes, which helped bitcoin miners earn a record 107 million dollars in revenue in a single day. This helped ease concerns about the halving's impact on miners' revenue and bitcoin's “long-term security budget.”
Even legacy institutions are noticing this increase in activity in bitcoin, according to analysts at Bernstein. btc/#:~:text=In%20a%20Monday%20note%20to,of%20liquidity%20and%20transaction%20fees.%E2%80%9D” target=”_blank” rel=””>indicating:
“bitcoin is experiencing a 'Defi summer' like the moment ethereum experienced in 2020, where multiple decentralized applications and tokens were launched on the ethereum blockchain, resulting in a waste of liquidity and transaction fees..”
Bernstein isn't the only one either; Franklin Templeton too bitcoin-ordinals-renaissance-driver-btc-community-3728873″ target=”_blank” rel=””>noted a “renaissance of activity” in bitcoin.
Launched alongside the bitcoin halving last month, there has been a lot of excitement around Runes. This is quite evident in the average bitcoin transaction fee, which has remained stable but revived with the launch of the Runes protocol. Earlier this month, rates were around $5, but surpassed $128 for the first time on April 20, according to Y Charts. With that, total transaction fees reached a record high of $80 million.
The protocol itself has already recorded 1.9 million in transactions and generated 1,366 btc in fees, according to data provided by Dune analysis. Data by nft Pulse Meanwhile, it reveals that bitcoin is the top chain in terms of trading revenue.
A new era for bitcoin
It all started with Ordinals, which allows users to insert data into the bitcoin blockchain. Ordinals have been a huge success, with over 66 million ordinal entries created since 2022. bitcoin-ordinals-analysis” target=”_blank” rel=””>generating more than 6,777 btc (worth $450.8 million) in fees, according to Dune Analytics.
Of course, things can always be better, and so Runes, also created by Ordinals developer Casey Rodarmor, came about. What Runes does is use bitcoin's unspent transaction outputs (UTX) and store data in the OP_RETURN field of the transactions. In contrast, the current bitcoin token standard, BRC-20, is less efficient and can clog the network.
This means that Rune keeps all data on-chain while being cheaper and more network-efficient than previous standards. In this way, Runes can offer a more secure platform to launch fungible token projects, such as meme coins, and carry out transactions.
Retail is already having fun with bitcoin, with hundreds of tokens launched in less than a week. Additionally, the Runes ecosystem has grown to include DEXs, nft marketplaces, launchpads, exchanges, lending protocols, explorers, analytics, and Rune-focused projects. Even centralized exchanges like OKX and Gate.io have weighed in and listed some of these newly minted runes. This continues to show how, over time, it will lead to a vast and vibrant ecosystem around bitcoin.
All of this is happening while the experience of creating and speculating with nfts and meme coins in bitcoin isn't even perfect yet. As technology and user experience improve and people realize the true potential of Runes, this growth will accelerate even more.
So this is just the beginning, meaning the project may see a drop in price, activity, and rates in the short term. As we can already see, the rate has returned to $32. However, in the long term, once the hype cools down, it will create a real frenzy of ingenuity, integrations and usefulness. Soon, Runes will be a billion-dollar ecosystem, generating new blockchain capabilities and renewed enthusiasm.
All this enthusiasm, accessibility and technological superiority will make Rune change the bitcoin landscape. You need a more legitimate general, defi and gamefi infrastructure. The top 10 runes by market cap are memes and we will see this change in the coming months.
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Overall, bitcoin's huge potential has been dormant until now, but with Runes, btc is ready to make all these possibilities a reality. The base layer has already spent the last decade establishing itself as a secure and robust blockchain. Now, retail will be able to access bitcoin again and experience its enormous value, taking it to new heights.
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