Bitcoin transactions hit a 19-month low, even as BTC trades near all-time highs.
Debate grows over low-fee transactions, raising questions about Bitcoin’s long-term utility and purpose.
Even as Bitcoin [BTC] prices hover near record highs, on-chain activity has plunged to its lowest levels in over a year.
This raised uncomfortable questions about whether the world’s largest cryptocurrency is being used… or simply held.
Transaction volumes collapse despite Bitcoin trading near ATH
The Bitcoin network is experiencing a puzzling disconnect: while BTC trades over $100K, on-chain activity has sharply declined.
As of the 6th of June, the seven-day Moving Average of daily transactions sits at just 317,000; the lowest level since October 2023, per The Block’s data.
Source: The Block
The chart clearly shows a steady decline in transaction counts since the late-2024 peak of over 700,000. This sharp drop raises key questions: Is Bitcoin usage decreasing, or has demand shifted off-chain?
Regardless, the slowdown stands out as a quiet phase within an otherwise booming market.
Low fee amid thinning demand
In a telling sign of Bitcoin’s slowing fee market, a 0.1 sat/vB transaction – costing just 11 sats (Satoshi, smallest unit of Bitcoin) or about $0.01 – was finally mined by MARA after sitting idle in the Mempool for nearly a month.
Source: X
The transaction, crafted by Mempool’s founder Mononaut, slipped through via MARA’s Slipstream pipeline, which accepts non-standard, low-fee transactions.Network demand has become soft, with miners increasingly open to including transactions far below Bitcoin Core’s default relay floor.
A creeping spam?
As Bitcoin transaction counts reach a 19-month low, a heated debate has erupted within the community.
In an open letter sent on the 6th of June, 31 Bitcoin Core developers defended the inclusion of low-fee and non-standard transactions, arguing that it is crucial to Bitcoin’s censorship-resistant nature.
“Bitcoin can and will be used for use cases not everyone agrees on,” they stated.
But critics like Jan3’s Samson Mow aren’t buying it. Framing the move as a drift away from Bitcoin’s monetary roots amid falling on-chain demand, he argued,
“Core devs… seem focused on removing barriers for spammers…”
A network in waiting
With activity plumbing new lows, Bitcoin’s identity crisis is hard to ignore.
As it cements its role as “digital gold” in the eyes of institutional investors, real on-chain usage is thinning, bringing doubts about its viability as a day-to-day transactional network.
The gap between price speculation and practical use is widening, putting pressure on miner incentives and decentralization.
If activity doesn’t return to Layer 1, BTC risks becoming a store of value supported by an infrastructure few actively use.
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