Bitcoin transaction fees have spiked by over 32% this week, marking their highest levels since August.

This sharp rise suggests an uptick in miners’ earnings, likely driven by renewed interest in Runes trading on the Bitcoin network.

Transaction Fees Surge as Runes Take Over 50% of Bitcoin Blockspace

Bitcoin miners earned a total of $5 million in transaction fees over the past week, according to data from IntoTheBlock. The fee surge points to heightened network activity, even though Bitcoin’s price has shown declining volatility. During the reporting period, the top asset mostly traded in a range between the $60,000 mark and $63,000, according to BeInCrypto data.

“Bitcoin fees surged by 32% this week, indicating increased network activity even as volatility trends downward,” IntoTheblock shared.

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Market analysts attribute the fee hike to a resurgence in Runes transactions. Alkimiya, a decentralized capital markets protocol, reported that Runes transactions dominated over 50% of Bitcoin’s blockspace during the past week, pushing the average BTC median fee rate up by as much as 65%.

“In this pool (Oct 8 – Oct 15), we’ve experienced 4 separate spikes in feerates. The highest median feerate clocked in at 50 sat/vB. These 4 spikes were driven by 4 different Runes mints. Since they are distinct events, the cascading effect on the baseline feerate is minimal, which means their impacts decay very quickly after the minting concluded,” Alkimiya stated.

Runes is a Bitcoin token standard developed by Casey Rodarmor, creator of Ordinals. It allows users to create fungible tokens on the network and builds on the BRC-20 standard, which has been criticized for its high token creation costs. Moreover, Runes provides a more efficient solution for creating and managing tokens on the Bitcoin network.

Data from Dune Analytics shows that Runes transactions accounted for an average of over 15% of all Bitcoin network transactions in the past week. On October 7, Runes-related transactions made up 19.4% of total BTC transactions, though this figure dropped to 10.7% on October 9 before rebounding to 13.6% by October 12.

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Meanwhile, the surge in Runes-related activity coincides with a rising demand for Runes tokens. According to Magic Eden, tokens such as DOG, RSIC, and BILLION have seen significant price increases in the last 24 hours. This renewed interest comes just as Magic Eden announced plans to launch a new swap feature for Runes assets.