Key Takeaways
- Bitcoin network activity fell to 256,000 daily transactions on June 1, its lowest since October 2023.
- Miners are including ultra-low-fee transactions, like one priced at just 0.1 sat/vB, accepted by MARA.
- Bitcoin Core devs defended the move in a June 6 statement, citing censorship resistance, but faced backlash.
The Bitcoin network’s transaction activity has fallen to its lowest level in over a year and a half, according to data from The Block.
On June 1, just 256,000 transactions were mined into blocks—well below the seven-day moving average of 317,000 recorded on June 7 and nearing October 2023’s low of 269,000.
Impact of low-fee transactions
This decline in usage comes even as Bitcoin trades near its all-time high, raising questions about network demand.
Notably, some miners are now including transactions that fall well below the default relay fee of 1 sat/vB.
Insights from mempool explorer
Open-source Mempool explorer founder Mononaut shared that one of their near-zero fee transactions—priced at just 0.1 sat/vB—was successfully mined by MARA (formerly Marathon Digital), which operates a low-fee transaction pipeline called Slipstream.
Mononaut described the transaction as a…
… bespoke handcrafted artisanal transaction
It costs only 11 sats, or about $0.01, and had waited in the mempool for a month.
Developer statement and criticism
On June 6, 31 Bitcoin Core developers released a statement defending the inclusion of such low-fee or non-standard transactions.
The developers emphasized Bitcoin’s censorship-resistant design.
They wrote:
Bitcoin can and will be used for use cases not everyone agrees on.
However, the statement faced criticism from figures like Samson Mow, who argued the developers are…
… removing barriers for spammers.
Mow accused them of gradually enabling network abuse.
