New data from Dune Analytics has shown a significant drop in activity for the Runes token standard on the Bitcoin blockchain. Daily transactions for Runes have plummeted by over 88% since their peak in June.
On average, there were 37,820 daily Runes transactions from June 22-28, a 90% decrease from the 331,040 transactions recorded between June 9-15. The lowest point was on June 24 with only 23,238 transactions, marking the lowest since the protocol’s launch on April 20, 2024.
This decline has also impacted Bitcoin miner fees, with Runes contributing less than 2 Bitcoin in fees over the past six days compared to 884 Bitcoin on April 24.
The Runes protocol, created by Ordinals founder Casey Rodarmor, was intended to be a streamlined way of generating new tokens on the Bitcoin network. However, recent data reveals that Runes transactions only make up 4.9% to 11.1% of all Bitcoin transactions in the last week.
The decrease in network fees, along with Bitcoin’s price drop, has led to a near-record low in Bitcoin’s hash price, a crucial metric for miner revenue. At the same time, Bitcoin miner reserves have fallen to 1.90 million Bitcoin, the lowest level in over 14 years.