The year 2024 seems to have marked an exciting time for the Bitcoin ecosystem. Since Bitcoin ETFs were approved for trading in the US this January, to their most recent halving event, a lot has been happening in the Bitcoin habitat. In another recent development, a new name has entered the Bitcoin family. Called Bitcoin Runes, this is an innovative protocol created to address issues associated with Bitcoin-based token systems that rely 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 the fourth Bitcoin halving event. Runes have been created by Casey Rodarmor, who also created the now popular Ordinals protocol for BTC-based NFTs.
The purpose of Bitcoin Runes is to improve the management of the output of unspent transactions or UTXO on the Bitcoin blockchain. The UTXO is a fraction of Bitcoin's value tied to a specific address on the blockchain that represents funds that have yet to be spent.
The protocol is able to directly use Bitcoin's native functionalities to reduce blockchain fluff and improve the user experience. By doing this, Runes will ensure that all Bitcoin units that are part of a transaction are properly accounted for. This eliminates any possibility of currency duplication, so all transactions mature with transparency and integrity at the time of minting. Rodarmor has been keeping X followers up to date with the perks attached to Runes.
One of the advantages of runes vs BRC-20 is that if you have a UTXO that has a certain amount of runes, you can create multiple PSBTs that offer to sell different amounts of those runes from the UTXO, with runestones transferring different amounts to the buyer and return. the remaining…
— Casey (@rodarmor) April 21, 2024
The introduction of Runes is expected to expand the types of tokens that the Bitcoin blockchain could support and could lead to an increase in Bitcoin's overall utility quotient. In addition, the Runes protocol will simplify the process of creating NFTs based on the Bitcoin blockchain.
Debris release has also contributed to a fluctuation in transaction fees.
With medium priority transactions now costing $8.48 (roughly Rs 705) while high priority transactions cost $9.32 (roughly Rs 775), transaction fees on the Bitcoin blockchain have recorded a significant drop from previous metrics. Prior to the halving and launch of Runes, BTC transaction prices were $146 (approximately Rs 12,167) for medium priority transactions and $170 (approximately Rs 14,167) for high priority transactions.
Cryptocurrency Prices on Indian Stock Exchanges
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