Bitcoin Block #840,000 Sees Users Pay $2.4 Million in Fees

Users paid 37.6256 BTC (approximately $2.4 million at the time of writing) in fees to include 3,050 transactions in Bitcoin’s halving block #840,000.

Following the halving, fees on the network of the first cryptocurrency soared to an average of $203.

An unknown user paid a fee of 6.7 BTC (~$430,500). This was noted by analysts at Whale Alert.

? A fee of 6 #BTC (430,619 USD) has just been paid for a single transaction!https://t.co/gbcpXb8nIT

— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) April 20, 2024

Another user incurred a fee of nearly 8 BTC (~$511,500) for a transaction in the Bitcoin halving block.

? A fee of 7 #BTC (511,720 USD) has just been paid for a single transaction!https://t.co/yPu8mexOmu

— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) April 20, 2024

At the time of writing, the situation had improved. The average transaction fee on the Bitcoin blockchain stands at $43.

Journalist Colin Wu linked the rise in fees to the launch of Runes. The protocol will allow the issuance of fungible tokens on the blockchain of the first cryptocurrency, but unlike BRC-20, it uses the UTXO model, preventing network congestion.

The current minimum transaction fee on the Bitcoin network exceeds 1,050 sat/vb (~$94), there are more than 237,000 transactions pending confirmation, and the memory usage exceeds 300 MB and reaches 1.15 GB. Runes went online and new runes were minted, which caused congestion.…

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) April 20, 2024

Bitcoin developer and Ordinals creator Casey Rodarmor introduced Runes in September 2023. According to him, the protocol is “designed for degenerate coins and meme tokens, but it is simple, efficient, and secure.”

Previously, the average transaction fee on the Bitcoin network (7DMA) exceeded $16. Experts attributed this to user activity in anticipation of the Runes launch.

On April 19, an unknown wallet sent 1.34 BTC (~$87,000 at the time of the transaction), paying a fee of $17,500.

Earlier in April, the ForkLog team hosted the online forum AllTimeHalf 2024 in celebration of the halving, featuring developers, entrepreneurs, enthusiasts, and visionaries. Recordings are available on the YouTube channel.

We also recommend exploring the event-related research by CoinGecko and Binance.