Bitcoin Network Fees Stabilize After Unprecedented Chaos On Halving Day

After the highly anticipated fourth halving arrived, Bitcoin transaction fees spiked to as high as $146 for a medium-priority transaction and $179 for a high-priority transaction. However, the cost to send the number one cryptocurrency has significantly plummeted post-halving.

Bitcoin Fees Crash After Fourth Halving Chaos

In the initial aftermath of the fourth Bitcoin halving event and the much-awaited launch of Casey Rodarmor’s new Runes protocol, BTC transaction fees skyrocketed to unprecedented levels as users hurried to create new fungible tokens that could be launched atop Bitcoin.

The higher-than-normal block fee payouts to miners on April 20 indicated miners weren’t initially affected by the rewards halving from 6.25 BTC per block to just 3.125 BTC after the 840,000th block was added to the Bitcoin blockchain. As of April 21, average Bitcoin fees are now back down to around $8–$10 for medium-priority transactions, according to on-chain data mempool.space.

Halvings reduce revenue rewards for the so-called miners, which means miners will probably be less incentivized to keep mining the flagship cryptocurrency. These recent large block fees netted miners over $100 million and helped offset the expected decline in revenue due to the reduced mining subsidy — at least temporarily. Most importantly, miners have a lucrative new revenue stream in the Runes era.

BTC Price Action Ahead

Anticipation around the halving has steadily grown since the beginning of the new year. In mid-January, after the US Securities and Exchange Commission greenlighted the first batch of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), fuel was added to the fire, and pundits began speculating what the fourth halving would mean for the price of Bitcoin.

Now that the halving is done and dusted, speculators can now see if their predictions were right. A common expectation around the halving was that it would propel the price of Bitcoin higher— eventually. In January, SkyBridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci suggested that Bitcoin could reach $170,000 after the halving.

However, it’s a bit early to validate any forecasts. At press time, the Bitcoin price hovered around $66,059, which was up 1.2% on the past day. Meanwhile, Ethereum (ETH) is priced at $3,200.85. That’s a 1% gain in the last 24 hours.

That said, there could be some good news on the horizon for Ether and BTC. Hong Kong conditionally approved spot ETFs for both assets, as ZyCrypto reported previously. The prospective ETF providers will likely start issuing shares before the end of this month. When trading commences, analysts have predicted that it could help ease any concerns around cryptocurrencies in the area, potentially fetching $25 billion in new money into the market.