Jan 20 – Jul 10 · 537 days · 248,330,578 transactions sampled · updated daily
Numbers you may see elsewhere can differ — they depend on the time window and whether they measure transactions vs bytes vs outputs (and whether the coinbase is included).
Of all Alkanes activity, 93.2% is DIESEL minting (cellpack 2:0 op 77) — roughly 422,269 mints/day estimated over the last 30 days.
The last 60 days are scanned at full density (every block); the older history is sampled — the percentages are equivalent either way.
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Of every Bitcoin transaction that carries an OP_RETURN, 98.1% are Alkanes (last 30 days), and they account for 95.7% of all OP_RETURN data bytes. This is Alkanes' grip on OP_RETURN itself — independent of how many BTC tx use OP_RETURN at all.
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This is the literal block space Alkanes occupy — transaction weight, the unit Bitcoin's block limit is actually denominated in (not byte counts, not transaction counts). Alkanes were 14.3% of all block weight over the period and 43.4% on the last measured day, up from under 1% at the start of the year. This is the honest "how much of Bitcoin is Alkanes" answer: by weight they are still a minority of block space, far below their share of transaction count (most Alkanes tx are tiny DIESEL mints). Measured directly from each transaction's weight via a metashrew/alkanes-rs indexer.
The one chart that ties it together: "how much of Bitcoin is Alkanes?" has no single answer — it depends on what you measure. By raw transaction count Alkanes are 25.9% all-time (but nearly all of that is tiny DIESEL mints); by OP_RETURN bytes 72.9%; by block weight — the literal space Bitcoin's block limit is denominated in — 14.3%; and by miner fee revenue, what actually pays for that space, just 3.9%. The story is the spread between the four lines: Alkanes dominate by count but are a modest slice by the economic measures.
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How this is calculated. Last day = Jul 10 (Bitcoin blocks 957,367–957,412, 46 sampled). Of 124,022 transactions carrying an OP_RETURN that day, 121,789 were Alkanes → 98.2%. Share = Alkanes OP_RETURN tx ÷ all OP_RETURN tx. A transaction counts as Alkanes when one of its OP_RETURN outputs decodes as a Runestone whose protostone carries protocol_tag = 1 (via the open-source alkanes-opreturn-decoder).
DIESEL was born at block 880,000 on Jan 20 2025. This is the raw volume — estimated mints per day (sampled blocks × 144) — on a log scale so the beginning stays visible: from a handful a day early in 2025 to a peak of about 518,410/day. The take-off around Aug–Sep 2025 is when DIESEL minting exploded (and began riding UNCOMMON•GOODS).
Running total of DIESEL mints since genesis — roughly 59.7M mints to date. Estimated by extrapolating each day's sampled blocks to the full day; the curve's slope is the daily rate above.
UNCOMMON•GOODS (Rune 1:0) rides along on almost every DIESEL mint. Of all UNCOMMON•GOODS mints each day, the share that are also DIESEL climbed from 0% early in the year to 99.3% recently (68.8% over the whole period): when you see an UNCOMMON•GOODS mint today, it is almost always DIESEL "wearing Runes clothing." Detected as a runestone whose mint is Rune 1:0 on a DIESEL (cellpack 2:0 op 77) transaction.
The same UNCOMMON•GOODS mints, now by raw count per day and split by what they really are: the teal band is UG mints that are actually DIESEL (Alkanes wearing a Runestone envelope); the amber band is UG mints that are independent Runes. The shape is the takeover story — early in 2025 most UG mints were genuine independent Runes (amber), then Alkanes/DIESEL swallowed UNCOMMON•GOODS: the DIESEL share climbed from 0% to 99.3% (68.8% over the whole period, dragged down only by those early Runes-only months). The UG mints you see in almost every transaction today are Alkanes, not independent Runes.
The honest answer to "if I see UNCOMMON•GOODS / Runestone mints in almost every transaction, isn't the network mostly Runes?" — No. It only looks that way because ~68.8% of those UNCOMMON•GOODS mints are DIESEL (chart above) — Alkanes riding inside a Runestone envelope. Strip those out and count only pure Runes (Runestone OP_RETURN that is not Alkanes) and the picture flips: pure Runes fell from 42.6% of OP_RETURN bytes at the start (early 2025) to 0.2% in the last 30 days, while Alkanes rose from 0.3% to 95.7%. The two lines crossed over in April 2025 and never went back. Over the whole period Alkanes are 72.9% of OP_RETURN bytes versus just 12.4% pure Runes. The data on-chain is Alkanes, not Runes.
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Shares alone can mislead — "Runes only lost share because Alkanes grew; maybe real Runes is growing too." It isn't. This is the absolute volume of OP_RETURN data per day (log scale, extrapolated to a full day). Pure Runes shrank from ~168 KB/day early in 2025 to ~21 KB/day now (≈8× less), while total OP_RETURN grew ~24× (394→9,388 KB/day) — essentially all of it Alkanes (~1→8,981 KB/day). Real Runes didn't migrate to Alkanes; it withered while Alkanes grew from nothing.
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Every OP_RETURN data byte, decomposed and stacked to 100%. Watch the amber band — pure Runes (Runestone that is not Alkanes) — get squeezed to a sliver as the teal band — Alkanes — takes over almost the entire space. All-time the split is Alkanes 72.9% / pure Runes 12.4% / other 14.7%. Same underlying data as the two-line chart above, shown as territory.
Tip: click a legend item to show/hide its band.
Bytes are one thing — but what about the transactions people actually see? Every Runestone transaction (the 6a5d envelope that reads as "Runes") is either an Alkanes protostone or a pure Rune. By count, Alkanes went from 0.4% of all Runestone transactions at the start of 2025 to 99.5% now. So when you see a Runestone in a transaction today, it is 99.5% likely to be Alkanes, not an independent Rune (69.2% over the whole period, dragged down by the early Runes-only months). This is the honest answer to "how is it Alkanes if I see Runestone mints everywhere?"
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The same by raw volume (log scale, extrapolated to a full day). Pure-Rune transactions fell from ~16,508/day to ~2,013/day (≈8× fewer), while Alkanes transactions went from a handful to ~424,956/day. Independent Runes didn't vanish entirely — a few thousand a day persist — but they stopped growing and were buried by Alkanes.
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Alkanes' OP_RETURN payload is small and stable (~21.2 bytes/tx), while the rest of OP_RETURN traffic is larger and more volatile — Alkanes are byte-efficient on-chain. (Bytes = full OP_RETURN output script.)
Alkanes transactions paid 3.9% of all miner fee revenue over the period (19.2% last 30 days); every OP_RETURN-carrying tx together paid 8.4%. By fee revenue Alkanes are a far smaller slice than by transaction count — most Alkanes tx are tiny DIESEL mints.
Daily revenue extrapolates the sampled blocks to a full day (×144 ÷ blocks sampled) and adds the 3.125 BTC/block subsidy, converted to USD at that day's BTC price. Tooltip shows the BTC figure; days before the price source's range show $0 (BTC still valid). The USD swings above are mostly the BTC price — the activity-driven part of miner income is the fees, shown next in BTC.
The block subsidy is a fixed 3.125 BTC/block, so the part of miner income that grows with on-chain activity is the fees. This shows daily fees in BTC, split into what Alkanes transactions paid vs everything else — so you can see Alkanes' real contribution to miners' BTC earnings as Alkanes activity grows. How this is calculated. Per-day fees = (sum of tx fees ÷ blocks sampled × 144) ÷ 1e8 BTC; Alkanes = tx whose protostone carries protocol_tag = 1. Subsidy excluded.
Tip: click a legend item to show/hide its line (stacked = total fees).
By fee revenue — what miners actually earn from fees — Alkanes are 19.2% over the last 30 days, far below their share of transaction count, because most Alkanes tx are tiny DIESEL mints that pay little. (Subsidy excluded here; fees only.)
Is DIESEL just cheap spam? This is the average fee a single transaction pays — Alkanes vs everything else. Over the last 30 days an Alkanes tx paid ~144 sats on average vs ~1,024 sats for a non-Alkanes tx. So even though Alkanes are a large share of transaction count, each one pays comparatively little — which is exactly why their share of fee revenue stays small.
We read every Bitcoin block in the window and inspect each transaction's outputs. An output whose script starts with 6a is an OP_RETURN; one starting 6a5d is a Runestone.
We decode the Runestone and if any protostone carries protocol_tag = 1, the transaction is Alkanes. A DIESEL mint is the specific case where the cellpack targets 2:0 with opcode 77 (the genesis alkane) — today that's the vast majority of all Alkanes activity.
Share of transactions = matching tx ÷ all tx. Share of OP_RETURN bytes = Alkanes OP_RETURN bytes ÷ all OP_RETURN bytes. Shares are unaffected by sampling; each day rests on ~24-48 sampled blocks (see blocksScanned in the CSV). Classification reuses the open-source alkanes-opreturn-decoder.
Glossary. OP_RETURN penetration: share of all BTC tx that carry an OP_RETURN. Alkanes (tx): share of all BTC tx that are Alkanes. Alkanes (bytes): share of OP_RETURN bytes that are Alkanes. Runes: OP_RETURN bytes that are Runestones but not Alkanes. Alkanes excl. DIESEL: Alkanes tx that aren't DIESEL mints — "real app" usage. DIESEL: mint of the genesis alkane (cellpack 2:0 op 77). Alkanes of OP_RETURN: of tx that carry an OP_RETURN, the share that are Alkanes (by tx and by bytes). Bytes per tx: average OP_RETURN script size per transaction in each bucket. Alkanes share of fee revenue: Alkanes fees ÷ total fees (subsidy excluded). Share of block space (by weight): Alkanes tx weight ÷ total block weight — weight is the unit Bitcoin's 4M-weight-unit block limit is denominated in, so this is literal block space. UNCOMMON•GOODS that are DIESEL: of runestone mints of Rune 1:0 (UNCOMMON•GOODS), the share that are also DIESEL mints. Block weight and UNCOMMON•GOODS come from a metashrew/alkanes-rs indexer that reads each block directly.