Bitcoin network activity at a one-year low…pressure on mining revenue structure

Ahead of year-end, Bitcoin (BTC) network activity has fallen to its lowest level in 12 months, with weakening signals detected across on-chain metrics.

On the 16th (local time), The Block reported that the 7-day moving average of active addresses on Bitcoin fell to about 660,000. This is the lowest level since last December, when network usage surged due to the speculative frenzy around Bitcoin Ordinals and Runes.

The slowdown in network activity is directly putting pressure on miners' revenues. Daily miner revenue has declined from a Q3 average of about $50 million to around $40 million recently. In particular, the share of transaction fees is extremely low, and most revenue depends on block rewards, indicating that actual demand for Bitcoin block space (blockspace) is limited.

There are also atypical phenomena in transaction structure. Runes-related transactions have increased their share of total transactions, but their contribution to total fees is only 5~10%. On Bitcoin, users set fee rates (sat/vB) themselves, and miners prioritize transactions with higher rewards. However, in the recent environment where block space is ample, Runes transactions submitted with low fees are also being included, so transaction counts are rising but not translating into revenue generation.

The fact that a significant portion of total transaction throughput generates almost no fees suggests a gap between network utilization and value creation. The Block said, "In a structure where block rewards decrease through repeated halvings, in the long term the user base that pays for scarce block space will inevitably become the core of miners' revenues," and "the current on-chain flow shows that the Bitcoin network faces structural challenges ahead of this transition."