Fees Spent on BTC’s Halving Block Reach $2.4M

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Bitcoin users have paid a staggering amount of fees – 37.7 Bitcoin, equivalent to over $2.4 million at current rates – to secure their portion of the limited space on the fourth Bitcoin halving block.

This occurred when miner ViaBTC produced the 840,000th block at 12:09 m UTC on April 20, triggering the automated protocol that reduces miner rewards from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC per block.

In total, including the miner subsidy of 3.125 BTC, ViaBTC earned 40.7 BTC or $2.6 million for producing the halving block.

The high fees are due to users rushing to claim their rare satoshis on the halving block, with much of the activity stemming from the launch of Casey Rodmarmor’s Runes Protocol at the same time.

This protocol is marketed as a more efficient way to create new tokens on the Bitcoin network, compared to the BRC-20 token standard.