According to ChainCatcher, CryptoQuant data shows that Bitcoin network activity has climbed to a level only about 7% below its historical peak recorded in September 2024. The metric has also broken above its long-term trend line for the first time since mid-2024. CryptoQuant said the main driver of the increase is a large volume of small transactions, rather than traditional economic payment activity.
Daily Transactions Move Back Toward Cycle Highs
The data shows that Bitcoin’s daily transaction count in 2026 has exceeded 800,000, more than doubling from its 2025 low and approaching the cycle highs seen during the 2023 to 2025 period. CryptoQuant views the rise as structural in nature rather than a short-term fluctuation. The recovery in transaction count has pushed Bitcoin on-chain activity back toward the upper range observed over recent years.
The composition of those transactions has also changed. Transactions below 0.01 BTC now account for about 80% of the total, far above the roughly 44% share recorded in 2023. CryptoQuant linked this shift to OP_RETURN usage approaching historical highs. The report said protocols and services such as Runes, Ordinals, BRC-20 and data timestamping write data into blocks, creating a large number of low-value transactions. Some of these transactions are as small as 546 satoshis.
Inscription Activity Adds to Mempool Backlog
As inscription activity has increased, the number of pending transactions in Bitcoin’s mempool has climbed to about 128,000, the highest level since February 2025. This remains below the extreme congestion levels seen in September 2023 and November 2024, but CryptoQuant said non-financial-use transactions are taking up a growing share of Bitcoin network throughput.
The report said that if this trend continues, it could push up fees for time-sensitive economic transactions. At the same time, the increase in on-chain activity contrasts with fund flows. Bitcoin and Ethereum spot funds together recorded more than $528 million in net outflows. Even so, institutional investors continue to view ETF flows as the core driver of the current cycle and maintain a baseline expectation that Bitcoin will reach $150,000 by year-end.