Bitcoin gas fees drop almost 10x after halving
The cost of sending transactions on Bitcoin declined nearly 10 times after an initial spike following the BTC halving last week.
Days after the Bitcoin (BTC) halving, on-chain analytics provider Mempool.space reported BTC gas fees of around $9.51 for low-priority transactions and $10.07 for medium-priority actions on crypto’s largest decentralized network.
High-priority transactions cost as much as $10.44 per data seen at press time.
The figures represented a massive drop compared to fees after last week’s halving. At the time, participants had to pay more than $146 for medium-priority transactions and over $170 for high-priority sends.
According to CoinMarketCap, the price of BTC was relatively unchanged after the asset’s much-anticipated code change designed by Satoshi Nakamoto to bolster scarcity and kneecap token inflation. In the past seven days, BTC gained around 2.4% to trade at around $66,000.
A primary concern during the BTC pre-halving was reduced revenue for miners due to block rewards being cut by 50%. Casey Rodarmor’s Runes protocol was touted as a solution and was slated to launch simultaneously with the halving to bootstrap on-chain activity.
Rodarmor’s Runes enables users to create UTXObased fungible assets on BTC’s blockchain, promising another avenue to kickstart decentralized finance (defi) on the world’s biggest blockchain.
Bitcoin Runes is said to improve on the BRC-2O token standard designed by the pseudonymous developer Domo. Domo’s idea was an offshoot of the Ordinal protocol released by Rodarmor.
Days after the halving, the Runestone NFT collection has nearly 50% of its floor price value. Per MagicEden, the average cost of a so-called Runestole fell from 0.073 BTC to 0.035 as of writing, signaling reduced interest in the concept after the initial hype.
Cryptocurrency exchange Woo X has launched a product that allows retail customers to invest in tokenized U.S. Treasury bills, marking a first in the sector.
The new offering, RWA (Real-World Assets) Earn Vaults, was developed in collaboration with the Londonbased OpenTrade. It is designed to combine the stability of traditional financial instruments with the innovative features of the cryptocurrency market.
“For the first time, retail users on a centralized exchange can instantly access an interest-bearing account backed by U.S. Treasury Bills,” said Willy Chuang, Woo X’s Chief Operating Officer, in an email.
The move comes as the tokenization of high-quality assets like U.S. Treasuries gains popularity, driven by recent hikes in interest rates and a concurrent crypto bull run.
Chuang emphasized that the initiative “Bridges a crucial gap between traditional financial securities and the dynamic world of cryptocurrency, offering our users an unprecedented opportunity to engage with low-risk, high-quality financial assets in a seamless, secure, and efficient manner.”
Additionally, Woo X continues to expand its offerings, having recently rolled out index-linked perpetuals that track crypto meme coins and layer 2 tokens, working alongside the market maker Wintermute.
Last year, another crypto platform, Finblox, announced plans to introduce similar tokenized Treasury products to retail investors.
WOO, Woo X’s token on the Ethereum network, is up 7.5% for the week, an increase of 3.6% for the day, and currently sits at $0.32, according to CoinMarketCap.
Those expecting repayment reported that claims accounts have been updated with information about Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and fiat payouts, with many speculating that cryptocurrency payouts will begin soon.
Published screenshots indicate that the repayment status in the fiat currency return request section is marked as completed. Several users said that fiat currency payments were received in their bank accounts.