ChainCatcher reported that Julio Moreno, head of research at CryptoQuant, said transactions of less than 0.01 BTC currently account for about 80% of Bitcoin’s total daily transaction volume. This is far above the roughly 44% share recorded in 2023, showing that small-value transfers now represent a much larger portion of on-chain Bitcoin activity.
According to Moreno, the increase is mainly driven by OP_RETURN-based on-chain data protocols, including Runes, Ordinals, BRC-20 and data timestamping services. These protocols generate large numbers of small transactions, with some transfers as small as 546 satoshis, or around $0.35 based on the figure cited. As a result, the number of low-value Bitcoin transfers has continued to rise.
Moreno also noted that Bitcoin’s network activity index has been climbing since January this year. The index has now reached its highest level since the end of 2024, reflecting a further rise in Bitcoin network usage compared with the start of the year.