Bitcoin network transactions have dropped to their lowest level since October 2023.

As of June 6, 2025, the seven-day moving average fell to around 317,000.

Only 256,000 transactions were processed on June 1. This decline comes as some miners, like MARA, are processing low-fee transactions.

A transaction submitted by Mempool founder Mononaut had a fee of just 0.1 sat/vB and cost 11 satoshis (US$0.01).

It had been stuck in the mempool for a month before MARA mined it using its Slipstream pipeline.

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🔗 Source: The Block

🧠 Food for thought

1️⃣ Transaction activity and price divergence shows evolving market dynamics

The significant drop in Bitcoin transactions despite near all-time high prices reveals a fundamental shift in how investors are interacting with the network.

Bitcoin’s daily transactions have fallen nearly 40% year-over-year from 509,927 to around 307,505, highlighting a growing disconnect between market valuation and actual network usage1.

This pattern contradicts historical trends where transaction volumes typically increased alongside price rises, particularly during the 2017 cryptocurrency boom when daily transactions peaked at 490,6441.

The divergence suggests Bitcoin may be increasingly viewed as a long-term store of value rather than a medium of exchange, with investors holding rather than transacting during price appreciation periods.

This “HODL” behavior aligns with Bitcoin’s “digital gold” narrative that has gained traction among institutional investors who now control approximately 6% of the total Bitcoin supply2.

2️⃣ The core developer statement reflects Bitcoin’s ongoing governance tensions

The joint statement from 31 Bitcoin Core developers arguing against filtering transactions represents the latest chapter in Bitcoin’s long-running governance debates.

Their position that “nodes should not refuse to relay low-fee or non-standard transactions” directly addresses fundamental questions about Bitcoin’s purpose and censorship resistance3.

This debate mirrors previous contentious upgrade discussions, like SegWit and Taproot, where the community struggled to balance Bitcoin’s original vision with evolving technical needs4.

Critics like Samson Mow argue that enabling all transaction types could undermine Bitcoin’s primary function as a financial system by allowing spam transactions3.

The controversy highlights Bitcoin’s unique governance model where changes require broad consensus across developers, miners, and users. This deliberate design prioritizes stability but can slow innovation compared to more centralized cryptocurrencies5.

3️⃣ Low transaction volumes create unique economic incentives for miners

The current transaction drought is creating unusual economic conditions for Bitcoin miners who traditionally rely on both block rewards and transaction fees.

With transaction counts at 19-month lows and the mining of extremely low-fee transactions (as low as 0.1 sat/vB), miners appear to be competing for a diminishing pool of fee revenue3.

This situation is particularly significant because it’s occurring in a post-halving environment, where the block subsidy was recently cut in half, theoretically increasing miners’ reliance on transaction fees.

These conditions may accelerate the development of alternative fee markets and specialized mining strategies as the ecosystem adjusts to changing user behavior and approaches the long-term reality of diminishing block rewards4.

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