Even though the price of Bitcoin has been weak, microtransactions under 0.01 BTC (BTC) account for 80% or more of all transactions made on a daily basis. This is pushing transaction volume to new highs.
CryptoQuant Bitcoin has been pushed to the forefront of this surge “Network Activity Index” According to Thursday’s report, the economy has entered positive territory for first time since 2020. report By the Blockchain Data Company
The number of transactions under 0.01 BTC was 44% in 2023. Since then their percentage has more than doubled. This is largely due to the use of Ordinals and Runes as well as other data-inscription protocol.
According to the report by CryptoQuant’s head of research Julio Moreno a sustained increase in non-financial activities could be a major factor. “increase block space competition and raise fees for economic transactions.”
“The economic value of these transactions is, however, disproportionately small,” Moreno wrote.
Bitcoin’s activity on the network is currently 7% lower than its peak in September 2024. Source: CryptoQuant
Bitcoin’s congestion is driven by inscriptions
The congestion is still below previous peaks, which were seen when Bitcoin was a hot topic and users embed data like images, texts, tokens or other information on the blockchain.
Backlogs in transactions surged In 2023, as Ordinals activity and BRC-20 competition for space with normal transfers increased. A second spike occurred in 2024 after the Runes Protocol was launched.
Runes, Ordinals, BRC-20 tokens, data-timestamping and BRC-20 tokens generate a large volume of low value transactions, according to the report, explaining the dramatic rise in the number of microtransactions.
OP_RETURN has seen usage near records in 2026. This opcode allows data onchain to be embedded without creating outputs that can be spent. The 2025 Bitcoin Community split after Bitcoin Core developers eliminated a previously-established 80-byte relay limitation. The change was criticized by critics who claimed that it would allow users to store non-financial information using Bitcoin.
“The OP_RETURN opcode embeds up to 100,000 bytes of data onchain without creating spendable outputs, making it the standard mechanism for Bitcoin data-layer protocols,” Moreno wrote.
This protocol generates high volumes of transactions at dust value (as low 546 satoshis), which directly explains the surge in low-value cohorts.
Bitcoin mempool, which is a place where unconfirmed bitcoin transactions are held, has reached a total of 128,000 transactions. That’s its highest level since February 20,25.
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Source: cointelegraph.com
