Bitcoin users pay a staggering fee of 37.7 Bitcoins (BTC) (equivalent to just over $2.4 million at current prices) to get a share of the limited space in the fourth ever Bitcoin halving block spent.
On April 20th at 12:09 AM UTC, Bitcoin miner ViaBTC generated its 840,000th block, triggering an automatic protocol that reduced miner rewards by 50% from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC per block.
According to , block 840,000 quickly became the most popular digital real estate in Bitcoin history, with users dropping a total of 37.67 BTC in fees. data From Bitcoin block explorer mempool.space.
Including a miner subsidy of 3.125 BTC, a total of 40.7 BTC (equivalent to $2.6 million) was paid to Bitcoin miner ViaBTC for the production of the halved block.
Record-breaking fees to cause To the Degens who compete to carve and etch rare Satoshis into halving blocks – much of that activity stems from the frenzied activity of Bitcoin Ordinals creator Casey Rodmarmore’s new Rune Protocol, which went live at the same time as the halving. This is what happened.
The rune is commercially available It is used as a more efficient way to create new tokens on the Bitcoin network when compared to the BRC-20 token standard (an ordinal-based method for creating Bitcoin-based tokens).
Similar to BRC-20, Runes leverages the Bitcoin network, pays fees in Bitcoin, and creates new tokens. However, the similarities end there. The main difference between Runes and BRC-20 is that Runes utilizes an Unspent Transaction Output (UTXO) model to “etch” new tokens into Bitcoin. This is in contrast to the “inscription” account model used by Ordinals, according to the protocol. explainer From Rodalmor.
In an April 20 post to X, the pseudonymous Ordinals developer Leonidas claimed that the fees for the last five Bitcoin blocks after block 840,000 exceeded Coinbase’s rewards.
“Rune Degen single-handedly compensated for the reduction in miner rewards due to halving,” Leonidas wrote.
According to the tally, a total of $3.82 million in fees, excluding miner subsidies, was spent on the five blocks after the halving. data From mempool.space.
Related: Bitcoin Halving 2024: How to maintain BTC mining efficiency as rewards decline
Apart from the battle to carve one of the first runes, Bitcoin mining pools were also competing to acquire it. is known as “Magnificent” Satoshi. Epic Satoshi is the first Satoshi (the smallest unit of Bitcoin) mined in a halved block.
On April 15th, Bitcoin Frontier Fund Managing Partner Trevor Owens said: I have written He said he was willing to offer a prize of $500,000 to $1 million to “buy out” the first Bitcoin block.
Crypto X reacts to Bitcoin halving
Amid the turmoil, pseudonymous trader Hasaka posted a meme that encapsulated much of the widespread sentiment about the halving event. After a brief moment of celebration, the company quickly returns to business as usual.
Outspoken Bitcoin critic Peter Schiff also claimed that X: throw In the midst of the halving event, Bitcoiners began to see signs of decline.
“As we approach the halving of Bitcoin Hodler’s net worth, I think halving is a good name to describe what’s going on,” Schiff said.
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