Hype around Runes seems to be over already

Crypto trend appears to be over before its time

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The hype surrounding the Runes protocol already seems to be over. The number of transactions, which peaked in late April, has plummeted.

Runes recently became a new token standard on Bitcoin and was launched at the time of the cryptocurrency’s halving – the four-year cycle in which the reward for miners is halved to combat inflation.

The new protocol was devised by Casey Rodarmor, the creator of Ordinals. Ordinals is a protocol that allows users to ‘coin’ non-fungible tokens on the Bitcoin blockchain. These NFTs are not only limited to images, but can also include inscriptions such as videos, gifs and sounds.

It was already possible to store tokens on Bitcoin’s blockchain. That was done with the BRC-20 token standard, but Runes is more efficient. It should also save some block space, which may cause Ordinals to lose popularity.

Still, Runes’ attention seems to be short-lived. The launch led to an explosion in transaction fees, with peak share of 81.3 protocol of Bitcoin transactions on 23 April. During May, the number of transactions declined sharply. The idea seems to have had its day.

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