The daily transaction rates on the Bitcoin network have collapsed at more than 80% since April, according to a digital Galaxy report. As of August 2025, almost 15% of the blocks are “free”, which means that they are being extracted with minimal or zero transaction rates, just one satoshi per virtual byte or less.
The lowest transaction rates of Bitcoin (BTC) benefit users but reduce the income of the miners, which increases concerns about the sustainability of the long -term security model of the network.
The Bitcoin incentive structure is based on the fact that the miners are compensated for their work through block rewards and transaction rates. But with the reduction of the middle of April 2024 cutting rewards at 3,125 BTC per block, the miners are strongly leaning in the rate market, and is drying.
“As Block reward yourself, more weight falls to transaction rates,” Pierre Samaties, a commercial director of the Dfinity Foundation, told Cointelegraph. “If the use does not grow, that base slides and the guarantees weaken. Sustained performance is essential for the system to be defended.”
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Bitcoin in the chain activity falls
Bitcoin chain activity has slowed down significantly since the decrease in non -monetary trends such as orderly and runes. The Galaxy report indicates that OP_RETURN transactions, largely used during the 2024 order boom, now represent only 20% of the daily volume, below more than 60% in its peak.
Meanwhile, the 1 such as Solana alternative layer is gaining traction for high frequency use cases such as Memecoins and NFTS. In addition, the increase in Bitcoin Spot ETF, which now contains more than 1.3 million BTC, has pushed more BTC volume outside the chain, limiting the movement that would otherwise generate rates.
The bitcoin rates market is elastic by design, which means that rates increase when demand increases and decreases when the activity slows down. However, if demand continues to be reduced, miners can stay with very few incentives to ensure the network. Galaxy said that almost 50% of the recent blocks have not been full, and Mempool’s activity is still slow.
In this context, a new hope in the form of BTCFI, defige of Bitcoin. Unlike Defi in Ethereum or Solana, which uses intelligent contracts in those chains, BTCFI uses Bitcoin as an asset base at the time of building financial applications such as loans, trade and generation of layout in layers or protocols that interact directly with the Bitcoin network.
“Each BTCFI action requires movercin,” Samaties explained. “The movement drives the calculation, the calculation consumes block space and the space has costs.” In other words, if Btcfi grows, so does the chain activity and tariff income.
Related: Defi’s future is not in Ethereum, it is in Bitcoin
Digital Gold to Primitive Financial
Samaties said Bitcoin has been seen for a long time as “digital gold”, a value store rather than an usable asset. However, he sees it evolving in something more fundamental: a financial primitive.
“A financial primitive is a construction block developer to design flows, tools and logic,” he said. “In that role, Bitcoin becomes more than an asset to maintain, becomes a programmable component within broader financial systems.”
Julian Mezger, Marketing Director at Liquidium, also said that infrastructure improvements are preparing the scenario for change. “The last five years have transformed the bitcoin infrastructure of a simple settlement layer into an ecosystem of several layers,” he said. “Now we are seeing the foundations for the true Bitcoin’s defy.”
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