Tag: bitcoin halving

Bitcoin Runes Debut in Crypto Space: Here’s What We Know About Them

The year of 2024 has seemingly ushered in an exciting time for the Bitcoin ecosystem. Right from Bitcoin ETFs getting approved for trading in the US this January, to its most recent halving event – a lot has been going on in the Bitcoin habitat. In another latest development, a new name has entered the Bitcoin family. Called the Bitcoin Runes, this is an innovative protocol created to address issues associated to Bitcoin-based token systems that depend on off-chain data and native tokens used for operations.

Bitcoin Runes made its debut in the crypto sector on April 20 – sharing its launch date with Bitcoin’s fourth halving event. Runes has been created by Casey Rodarmor, who also created the now popular Ordinals protocol for BTC-based NFTs.

The purpose of Bitcoin Runes is to reportedly enhance the management of Unspent Transaction Output or the UTXO on the Bitcoin blockchain. The UTXO is a fraction of Bitcoin value linked to a specific address on the blockchain representing the funds that are yet to be spent.

The protocol is capable of directly using Bitcoin’s native functionalities to reduce blockchain fluff and make user experience better. In doing so, Runes will make sure that every unit of Bitcoin that is part of a transaction – is properly accounted for. With this, any chance of currency duplication is eliminated, hence making all transactions ripe with transparency and integrity at the time of minting. Rodarmor has been keeping followers on X updated with the benefits tied to Runes.

The introduction of Runes is expected to expand the types of tokens that the Bitcoin blockchain could support, and could lead to a spike in Bitcoin’s overall utility quotient. In addition, the Runes protocol will simplify the process of creating NFTs based on the Bitcoin blockchain.

Runes launch has reportedly also contributed to a fluctuation in transaction fees.

With medium-priority transactions now costing $8.48 (roughly Rs. 705) while high-priority transactions costing $9.32 (roughly Rs. 775), the transaction fees on Bitcoin blockchain have reportedly recorded a significant drop from previous metrics. Before the halving and launch of Runes, the BTC transaction prices were at $146 ((roughly Rs. 12,167) for medium-priority transactions and $170 (roughly Rs. 14,167) for high-priority transactions.

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Cryptocurrency Prices across Indian exchanges

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Bitcoin Miners Begin Token Offloading Hoping to Retain Profits Before Upcoming Halving

The Bitcoin ecosystem is gearing up for its fourth halving event, slated to take place in the next two weeks. In the backdrop of this upcoming significant development in the ecosystem, bitcoin miners have begun offloading their crypto holdings in buslk. There are several factors behind this BTC selling spree seeding from the mining community, including the intention of capitalising on the risen prices of BTC, clocked in the backdrop of the upcoming BTC halving.

The daily sales of BTC tokens sold by miners over the counter (OTC) have hit the mark of 1,60,000, which is the most since August 2023. The data was disclosed by on-chain analytics firm CryptoQuant.

In a thread of updates posted on X, the analytics firm said Bitcoin will soon be recording a significant drop in its transaction fees, which is believed to be pushing miners to bag profits from Bitcoin’s ongoing price spike. The average BTC transaction fees, the amount users pay miners for validating their transactions on the blockchain, stands at $2.864 (roughly Rs. 240) as of April 8.

Bitcoin halving is a pre-programmed automatic event put in place by its anonymous founder, who goes by the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. Through this process, Nakamoto wished to ensure that the addition of new tokens in circulation slows down, maintaining the uniqueness quotient and value point for BTC tokens.

Bitcoin halving is automatically triggered after every 210,000 blocks are mined on the Bitcoin blockchain. After halving, the block reward obtained by miners is reduced in half, reducing their incentives for mining Bitcoin blocks and slowing down the addition of new tokens.

After this upcoming halving event, the reward for miners will fall from 6.25 BTC for each block to 3.125 BTC.

In conversation with Gadgets360, Parth Chaturvedi, Investments Lead at CoinSwitch Ventures, highlighted that since the last halving in 2020, the computational power required to mine a block along with the associated electricity supply and electrical infrastructure had risen by five times. Securing capital from selling their BTC tokens now, miners are looking to ensure that they can sustain their mining operations at reduced rewards and earnings.

“Generally, post halving, several small miners become uncompetitive and end up being merged or acquired with larger players,” Chaturvedi said. “We could expect unprofitable miners to go out of business post the halving and leaving the industry to witness a wave of consolidation.”

Bitcoin miners are also still facing headwinds from lower transaction fees and increasing mining competition, as per CryptoQuant, which is also another reason why miners are selling big portions of their BTC holdings to retain profits now that Bitcoin’s fourth Bitcoin halving is merely 17 days away.

In March, BTC price breached the mark of $73,000 (roughly 60.8 lakh) creating a new all-time high (ATH) after November 2021. Its previous (ATH) was above $68,000 (roughly Rs. 56.6 lakh). As of Monday, March 8, Bitcoin is trading between the price points of $66,570 (roughly Rs. 55.4 lakh) and $70,000 (roughly Rs. 58.2 lakh).

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