According to ChainCatcher, CryptoQuant head of research Julio Moreno said that transactions worth less than 0.01 BTC currently account for about 80% of the Bitcoin network’s total daily transaction volume. This marks a sharp increase from around 44% in 2023, showing that low-value transfers now represent a much larger share of daily activity on the network.
On-chain data protocols drive smaller transfers
Moreno said 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 a large number of small transactions, with some transfers as low as 546 satoshis, which Moreno described as approximately $0.35.
As these low-value transfers continue to increase, Bitcoin’s network activity index has also been rising. Moreno said the index has climbed steadily since January this year and has now reached its highest level since the end of 2024.