Bitcoin Transaction Fees Plummet After Halving Event


As a crypto investor, I’ve noticed that the percentage of Bitcoin mining revenue derived from transaction fees has taken a considerable dip since the last halving event. Previously, transaction fees played a substantial role in boosting mining revenues, but their impact has diminished significantly.

As a researcher examining the latest trends in the cryptocurrency market, I’ve come across an intriguing finding from a CryptoQuant report. According to their data, transaction fees now account for approximately 35% of total miner revenue – a substantial drop compared to the 75% recorded on April 19th.

Transaction Fees Surge During Halving

Last Friday marked the occurrence of the fourth Bitcoin halving, leading to a significant reduction in miner rewards. Specifically, miner rewards for each block mined were cut in half, now amounting to 3.125 bitcoins (BTC). Consequently, the daily production of new Bitcoins has decreased from an average of 900 BTC to approximately 450 BTC.

As an analyst, I’ve observed an intriguing trend in Bitcoin mining revenues on the halving day. Instead of stating “daily miner revenue spiked,” I could say “my analysis reveals a significant increase in daily mining revenues” or “I noticed a substantial rise in daily mining revenues.”

One significant contributor to the exorbitant transaction fees was the introduction of the Runes protocol following its deployment on the Bitcoin network during the halving event. Runes facilitates the creation and transfer of fungible tokens by encoding data within OP RETURN codes. The utilization of these codes reached an unprecedented peak of 512,000 instances on the day of the halving, attracting a multitude of users to the Runes Protocol.

A Significant Fall in Fees

As a crypto investor, I’ve noticed that transaction fees dropped significantly within a day after the halving event. Currently, fees account for approximately 35% of miner revenue, which is around $50 million. This represents a significant decline of about 35% compared to the pre-halving highs, where miner revenue from fees reached roughly $78 million.

Based on information from YCharts, the cost of Bitcoin transactions dropped significantly from approximately $80 million on April 20th to around $6 million. Over the last week, these fees have fluctuated near an average of $16 million, with the smallest amount recorded on April 26th.

Miners facing reduced block rewards from Bitcoin’s halving event can stay profitable with increasing transaction fees and higher BTC prices. However, if transaction fees continue to decline and Bitcoin fails to surpass the $64,000 mark, some miners might have to shut down their operations.

Despite CryptoQuant’s assertion, it seems that the impact of the Bitcoin halving on the network hashrate has yet to materialize fully. Miners continue to mine at pre-halving rates, with the Bitcoin network currently processing transactions at a hashrate of 617 Exahashes per second (EH/s). Meanwhile, the hashprice, which represents the cost of mining one Terahash per second (TH/s), sits at a record low of $0.07 per TH/s, a figure last seen in October.

Read More

2024-04-28 16:28