Bitcoin On-Chain Activity Plummets to October 2023 Levels Amid Price Surge

Despite the increasing price nearing its all-time high (ATH), the daily number of transactions in the Bitcoin network has dropped to levels last seen in October 2023.

On June 1, the figure fell to as low as 256,000.

Along with this decline in activity, several transactions with minimal fees were included in the blocks. Among them was one from Bitcoin developer known as mononaut, which incurred a cost of only 0.1 satoshi per virtual byte.

According to an expert, processing this transaction took approximately a month. The fee amounted to a mere 11 satoshis (around $0.01).

Mononaut clarified that the transaction was handled by the Bitcoin miner MARA, which employs a software called Slipstream for such cases.

On June 6, the developers of Bitcoin Core released an open letter opposing the filtering of non-standard transactions and low-fee operations, similar to the one conducted by mononaut. They argued that such restrictions contradict the core principles of Bitcoin—decentralization and censorship resistance.

They also highlighted that redirecting users to private channels like Slipstream jeopardizes the network’s decentralization.

This initiative prompted criticism from various prominent community figures. Samson Mow, the founder of Jan3, commented on X:

As a reminder, in the upcoming release of Bitcoin Core, the volume limit for OP_RETURN data will be removed. Node operators will be able to include larger volumes of data, such as media files, in transactions.