Loon generates over $135 million in fees in its first week on the Bitcoin network.
The Runes token standard was recently released. Bitcoin 
BTC
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create a network In the first week, over 2,129 Bitcoin ($135 million) in transaction fees were incurred.
Runes leverages Bitcoin’s UTXO model and OP_RETURN opcode to provide a more efficient tokenization solution for the network than the BRC20 standard (based on the Ordinals protocol). This allows users to create tokens on top of Bitcoin, usually memecoins.
The Runes system was invented by a developer named Casey Rodarmor, who conceptualized the Ordinals protocol in early 2023.
The launch of Runes coincided with the fourth Bitcoin halving at block height 840,000. The protocol quickly became a major contributor to network transaction and fee activity. According to cryptokoryo’s Dune dashboard, Runes-related activity accounted for 45% of Bitcoin transactions on Thursday, while regular transactions accounted for 51%. Additionally, the network has processed over 3 million transactions involving runes since its introduction.
According to data from Unisat, the Runes trading protocol, approximately 11,000 Runes tokens have been issued to date, increasing demand for network block space and thus network fees. According to The Block’s data dashboard, average transaction fees remained at around $40 on April 25, compared to $5 in early April.
The introduction of runes also coincides with an increase in Bitcoin’s mining difficulty, which rose 2% on Wednesday to a new all-time high. This adjustment marks the first increase in mining difficulty immediately following the halving, which means increased miner participation.
The most notable of the tokens under the Runes standard is DOG, which has the highest market capitalization among Runes at over $400 million, according to Magic Eden data. DOG is associated with the Runestone NFT collection of Bitcoin Ordinals explorer Ord.io co-founder Leonidas. Additional tokens that have garnered attention in the Runes ecosystem include RSIC Genesis, Satoshi Nakamoto, Wanko Manko, and Bitcoin Pepe Matrix.
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