The portion of Bitcoin miner revenue coming from transaction fees has fallen significantly after surging on the day of the last halving event.
A CryptoQuant report revealed that transaction fees now represent 35% of total miner revenue, a significant decline from the 75% recorded on April 19.
Transaction Fees Surge During Halving
The fourth Bitcoin halving, which took place last Friday, slashed miner block rewards by half to 3.125 bitcoins (BTC), resulting in daily issuance falling from an average of 900 BTC to 450 BTC.
On the halving day, daily miner revenue spiked to $100 million, stemming from a notable spike in transaction fees. Daily fees on the Bitcoin network surged to 1,258 BTC ($80 million), a level never seen before, representing 75% of the total revenue for that day.
One major propeller of the high transaction fees was the Runes protocol, which drove network activity after it was launched on the Bitcoin halving block. Runes allows the issuance and transfer of fungible tokens through the storage of data in OP RETURN codes. The use of the codes on the halving day hit a record high of 512,000 as users flocked to the Runes Protocol.
A Significant Fall in Fees
In less than 24 hours after the halving, transaction fees returned to lower levels and remained there. Fees currently constitute 35% of total miner revenue, while the latter now hovers around $50 million, a 35% decline from pre-halving record-high levels of roughly $78 million.
According to YCharts data, Bitcoin transaction fees have fallen from $80 million on April 20 to $6 million. Over the past week, they have hovered around an average of $16 million, with the lowest figure seen on April 26.
Higher transaction fees and rising BTC prices will help miners stay afloat since their block rewards have been cut in half. With fees plummeting by the day and BTC struggling to move past $64,000, some miners may soon be forced to quit.
Nevertheless, CryptoQuant said it is too early to see any long-term effects of the halving on the network hashrate as miners appear to be running their operations at the same rate before the halving. The Bitcoin network hashrate is at 617 EH/s, while its hashprice is now at $0.07 per TH/s, the lowest since October.
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