Now that Bitcoin fees have come back down, what was the cause of the increase? Was it runes and ordinals?
Has the volume of these derivatives declined to the point that fees are now what they used to be?
Ordinals and Runes appeared chronologically but their appearances would have not made big effects on Bitcoin mempools and transaction fees if there had been no Bitcoin bull market.
Developers of Ordinals and Runes projects knew well that a bull market will help them to more easily launch their projects successfully. It is more easily to convince people believe in Ordinals or Runes projects in bull market. It's more easily to steal money from investors and developers can use it to accumulate bitcoins for themselves.