Alkanes Asian Market Drove 61% of Bitcoin Transactions for 90 Days, SUBFROST Data Shows

By Juan Galt, Bitcoin Magazine

A Quiet Protocol Behind a Massive Share of Bitcoin Traffic

New on-chain data from SUBFROST, the infrastructure company behind the Alkanes protocol, shows that Alkanes-related activity accounted for 61% of all Bitcoin transactions over a 90-day period. The figure is striking not only for its size but for how little attention it has received. While most public discussion of Bitcoin’s recent transaction growth has centered on Runes, Ordinals, and BRC-20, the data tells a more specific story: a single protocol, powered largely by the DIESEL token, has been quietly generating the majority of blockspace demand. SUBFROST has made a deliberate effort to engage the community driving that demand. The company ships full Chinese-language documentation, maintains a Chinese-language metrics page, and runs an official Chinese-language Telegram channel for DIESEL. In 2025, Chinese-language crypto media noted that most Alkanes discussion on X came from Chinese-speaking users, many of whom pointed to UniSat, a popular Hong Kong-based wallet, as their primary interface. SUBFROST has also shown up in person, hosting a workshop in China, placing contributors Lee and RWP IV on a Chinese stage, and taking a booth at Bitcoin Asia in Hong Kong. The pattern is unmistakable: the Asian market has become the engine of Alkanes’ growth. At a time when Bitcoin’s blockspace is increasingly contested by financial applications, collectible projects, and token protocols, the ability to attribute transaction volume to a specific source is more important than ever. Yet the 61% figure — drawn from SUBFROST’s public data — has not been widely discussed outside a niche group of protocol observers. That may be because Alkanes does not fit neatly into the categories that dominate Bitcoin media coverage. It is not a sidechain, not a layer-2 in the traditional sense, and not a simple token standard. It is something more unusual: a smart-contract environment that lives inside Bitcoin’s witness data and communicates through Runes-format messages. The result is a protocol that can generate enormous transaction volume while remaining almost invisible to casual observers. SUBFROST’s outreach to Chinese-speaking users suggests the company understands exactly where its activity is coming from.

How SUBFROST Counts Alkanes Transactions

SUBFROST’s numbers are not estimates. The company publishes a daily transaction file under an MIT license, with live charts on its website at subfrost.io/metrics and the full underlying time series available on GitHub. The methodology is deliberately transparent: a transaction is counted as Alkanes when an OP_RETURN runestone contains a protostone with protocol tag 1. For those unfamiliar with the technical stack, a runestone is a data structure used by the Runes protocol to carry token-related instructions, while a protostone is a lower-level component that can be embedded within it. By using protocol tag 1, SUBFROST isolates Alkanes-specific activity from the broader stream of Runes transactions. The distinction matters. In a press release shared with Bitcoin Magazine, SUBFROST reported that 99.7% of UNCOMMON•GOODS Runes mints during the observed window were also DIESEL mints. The emission function for DIESEL is defined on Alkanes’ genesis contract, which means that every DIESEL mint necessarily generates an Alkanes transaction. In a July explainer, the company wrote that “almost all of this Alkanes activity is one operation, the DIESEL mint.” The relationship has been described as “a rune on top of a rune”: DIESEL is a Runes-protocol token, but its minting process runs through Alkanes, creating a layered footprint that can easily be mistaken for ordinary Runes activity. This level of detail is rare in the Bitcoin ecosystem, where on-chain activity is often aggregated into broad categories. Without SUBFROST’s tagging, an observer looking at raw OP_RETURN data would see a flood of runestones but would have no way to know that the vast majority of them were part of a single protocol’s operation. That is exactly what happened in June, when major analytics firms attributed a surge in network activity to Runes without identifying Alkanes as the underlying driver. SUBFROST’s open-data approach is designed to prevent that kind of misreading, at least for those willing to look beneath the surface. The company’s decision to release the data under an MIT license also means independent researchers can verify the numbers and build their own tools on top of them. In a space where data providers often keep their methodologies proprietary, that is a meaningful step toward accountability.

No Consensus Changes, No Sidechain: How Alkanes Works

Understanding why Alkanes activity is so easy to miss requires a look at its architecture. Alkanes does not change Bitcoin’s consensus rules, nor does it run as a sidechain. Instead, its contract code is written in WebAssembly and deployed once in Bitcoin’s witness data. After that initial deployment, users interact with the protocol by sending function calls inside Runes-format runestones. A separate indexer called Metashrew reads those calls and executes them, maintaining the protocol’s state outside the base layer. Bitcoin full nodes confirm the transactions as valid Bitcoin transactions, but they do not validate Alkanes balances or execute Alkanes logic. This design has a number of implications. First, it means Alkanes can offer programmability without requiring a soft fork or any change to Bitcoin’s consensus code. Second, it means the protocol’s security model ultimately depends on the indexer’s correctness, not on Bitcoin miners or full nodes. Third, it means that from the perspective of a standard block explorer, an Alkanes transaction looks like any other transaction with OP_RETURN data. The protocol is, in a sense, a guest on Bitcoin — one that uses the base layer for availability and ordering, but does all of its computation elsewhere. That architecture has drawn both interest and skepticism. Supporters argue that it represents a pragmatic middle ground between fully trustless layer-2 systems and purely off-chain protocols. Critics point out that relying on an indexer introduces a point of failure, and that users must trust Metashrew to execute contract code correctly. SUBFROST has acknowledged these concerns by publishing the indexer’s code and making its data available for audit. The broader point, however, is that Alkanes is not trying to be a sidechain or a separate network. It is a Bitcoin-native protocol that uses the chain as a settlement and data layer while pushing execution to a separate component. That design choice is central to understanding why its activity appears in Runes metrics, why it can generate such high transaction volumes, and why it has remained largely invisible to observers who focus only on base-layer transaction counts.

Why June’s Runes Headlines Missed the Real Story

The invisibility was on full display in June, when multiple outlets reported on a surge in Bitcoin network activity without identifying its true source. CryptoQuant reported that Bitcoin network activity had reached its highest level since late 2024, with daily transactions above 800,000, and tied the OP_RETURN surge to Runes, Ordinals, and BRC-20. Bitcoin Magazine carried that reading on June 22. CoinDesk, citing Glassnode, said daily transactions had topped 820,000, with more than 600,000 runestones, and attributed the move to Runes. None of those reports named Alkanes. The omission was not necessarily a failure of journalism; it was a reflection of how the data was being categorized. Analytics firms were measuring runestones and OP_RETURN outputs, and Alkanes transactions fit both categories. Without a protocol-level tag, they looked like ordinary Runes activity. It was only when Renaud Cuny, who writes the Bitcoin Block Space Weekly newsletter and tracks BIP-110, ran his own count that the picture sharpened. Over a 60-day window, Cuny found that Alkanes protostones represented 91% of OP_RETURN outputs. That figure, combined with SUBFROST’s claim that Alkanes drove 61% of all Bitcoin transactions over 90 days, suggests that what looked like a broad Runes revival was, in large part, a single protocol’s activity. The episode is a reminder that on-chain metrics are only as useful as the categories used to interpret them. A runestone count is not the same as a user count, and an OP_RETURN output is not the same as a meaningful transaction. As Bitcoin’s ecosystem becomes more layered, the gap between raw data and actual activity is likely to widen. Protocols like Alkanes, which wrap their operations in Runes-format messages, will continue to blur the lines between categories. The challenge for analysts and reporters is to look beyond the aggregate numbers and ask what is actually driving them. In this case, the answer was not a general resurgence of Runes enthusiasm, but a specific token mint — DIESEL — running on a specific protocol — Alkanes — with a concentrated user base in Asia. That is a much more precise story, and one that would have been impossible to tell without granular, protocol-aware data.

From Oyl Corp to SUBFROST: Alkanes’ Brief Institutional Journey

Alkanes’ rise has been remarkably fast. The protocol launched at Bitcoin block 880,000 on Jan. 20, 2025, when the DIESEL contract was deployed. It was originally built at Oyl Corp., a Bitcoin-focused development shop that had been working on tools for the Ordinals and Runes ecosystem. In January 2026, Oyl announced that it was winding down operations and that SUBFROST would take over protocol maintenance. The transition marks a shift in the project’s center of gravity. Oyl was based in the United States, but SUBFROST’s public-facing efforts have been heavily oriented toward Asia. The company ships full Chinese-language documentation, maintains a Chinese-language metrics page, and runs an official Chinese-language Telegram channel for DIESEL. It has held workshops in China, put contributors Lee and RWP IV on stage there, and exhibited at Bitcoin Asia in Hong Kong. The strategy appears to be working. Chinese-language crypto media have noted that most Alkanes discussion on X comes from Chinese-speaking users, and many of those users cite UniSat, a popular Hong Kong wallet, as their entry point. Whether by design or by organic adoption, Alkanes has become one of the most visible examples of Asia’s influence on Bitcoin’s application layer. The handoff from Oyl to SUBFROST also raises questions about governance and continuity. Protocol maintenance is not the same as protocol ownership; Alkanes is open-source, and its contracts are deployed on Bitcoin. But the team responsible for updating the indexer, fixing bugs, and communicating with users plays an outsized role in a protocol’s trajectory. SUBFROST has signaled that it intends to keep the project moving forward, with a focus on transparency and community engagement. The company’s decision to publish daily transaction files and maintain public dashboards suggests a commitment to keeping the protocol’s activity visible. For users and developers who have built on Alkanes, the transition is a test of whether a protocol can survive the departure of its original creators. So far, the data indicates that activity has not collapsed. The 61% transaction share over 90 days, the 91% OP_RETURN share over 60 days, and the high concentration of DIESEL mints all point to a protocol that remains very much alive.

What Alkanes’ Rise Means for Bitcoin’s On-Chain Future

The broader lesson from SUBFROST’s data is that Bitcoin’s on-chain economy is becoming more layered, more specialized, and harder to measure. For years, the standard metrics — transaction counts, block sizes, fee rates — were enough to tell the story of network usage. That is no longer the case. Protocols like Alkanes build on top of Runes, use OP_RETURN to carry programmatic instructions, and rely on off-chain indexers for execution. The result is a growing gap between what Bitcoin’s base layer records and what is actually happening in the ecosystem above it. The fact that 61% of all Bitcoin transactions over a 90-day period could be tied to a single protocol — and that most of that activity went unnoticed by major media outlets — is a powerful illustration of that gap. It also underscores the importance of transparent, open-source data. SUBFROST’s MIT-licensed daily files and live dashboards are a step in the right direction, but they are only useful if journalists, analysts, and developers actually use them. The next wave of Bitcoin adoption will likely be driven by applications that are increasingly difficult to categorize. Alkanes is an early example, but it will not be the last. As the Asian market continues to drive activity, and as protocols like DIESEL continue to generate transaction volume, the demand for better analytics will only grow. For Bitcoin’s infrastructure builders, the lesson is clear: transparency cannot be an afterthought. If a protocol is responsible for a majority of network transactions, the public deserves to know. If a token mint is driving blockspace demand, that information should be accessible to researchers and reporters. SUBFROST has set a standard by publishing its data openly, but the broader industry still has work to do. Exchanges, wallets, and analytics firms should consider adopting similar practices, tagging transactions at the protocol level and sharing their methodologies. Without that kind of transparency, the story of Bitcoin’s growth will remain incomplete. With it, the community can begin to understand not just how much activity is happening, but why it is happening, who is driving it, and what it means for the network’s future. Alkanes, DIESEL, and the Asian market that embraced them are a case study in the power of open data — and a reminder that the most important stories in Bitcoin are sometimes hiding in plain sight.

This article first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and was written by Juan Galt.