The crypto market picked up some speed on Monday morning as sentiments and speculations around Bitcoin halving settled down. BTC maintained stability hovering around the $65,000 level over the last week. However, the cooling down of the selling pressure had allowed it to regain the $66,000 price level, seeking to print new highs.
Bitcoin halving showing impact?
The crucial halving event has already started to put a reduction in transaction fees. Reports reveal that medium-priority transactions are now costing around $8.48, down from a high of over $146. This happened immediately after the halving event. It added that the high priority transactions have also seen a drop to approx $9 from a high of $170.
Data shared by the hashprice index depicts that the miner earnings have dropped to $81 from $182.98 post-halving. It was expected that the miners’ revenue would be reduced once the fourth halving was done.
However, the introduction of the Runes protocol is anticipated to make up for the decline by boosting on-chain activity. A report suggests that in the initial days after the halving event, a nearly 50% drop in the floor price of the runestone NFT collection can be seen.
Bitcoin showed its intention to breakthrough through the ongoing spiral. BTC price is up by more than 2% in the last 24 hours. It is trading at an average price of $66,180, at the press time. It is still down by 10% from its all time high (ATH) of $73,750 recorded on March 14, 2024.
BTC’s 24 hour trading volume recorded a surge of more than 12% to stand at around $24.9 billion. It is holding a market cap of around $1.3 trillion. Bitcoin’s dominance currently stands at 53.59% which is an increase of 0.14% over the day.
Layer 2 token shines
It is important to note that Layer 2 tokens have outperformed Bitcoin’s modest gains post-halving. STX, the native token of BTC L2 network Stacks, surged nearly 20% to $2.87. Other Layer 2 coins like Elastos’ ELA token and SatoshiVM’s SAVM recorded gains of 11% and 5%, respectively.
The recent surge in Bitcoin transaction fees reached levels not seen since early 2018. It can be linked to the launch of the Runes protocol. This protocol enables users to “etch” and mint tokens on the Bitcoin blockchain, leading to increased transaction activity and higher fees.