Bitcoin transactions smaller than 0.01 BTC now represent about 80% of all network activity, up from roughly 44% in 2023, according to a Thursday report from CryptoQuant. The firm said Bitcoin’s Network Activity Index has moved back into positive territory for the first time since the start of 2024.
CryptoQuant tied the jump mainly to Ordinals, Runes, and other data-processing protocols. The volume is large, but the economic weight is relatively small. Research director Julio Moreno said sustained growth in non-financial transactions could intensify competition for block space and raise fees for regular economic transfers.
Ordinals, Runes, and BRC-20 drive low-value transaction volume
The report said current traffic still has not matched the strongest waves seen during earlier inscription frenzies, yet transaction backlogs have clearly grown. Those earlier periods were linked to users writing images, text, or token data directly onto the Bitcoin blockchain.
In 2023, the rise of Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens led them to compete with standard transfers for the same block space, pushing pending transactions higher. The launch of the Runes protocol later in 2024 triggered another spike. CryptoQuant said Runes, Ordinals, BRC-20 tokens, and timestamping services have all contributed to a burst of high-count, low-value micro transactions.
OP_RETURN activity nears record levels again in 2026
CryptoQuant also said OP_RETURN usage has approached record territory again in 2026. The feature lets users embed data directly on-chain without creating spendable outputs, and Moreno described it as a standard tool for Bitcoin data-layer protocols. He said OP_RETURN can be used to embed up to 100,000 bytes of data directly on the chain.
The mechanism became a larger point of debate after Bitcoin Core developers removed the long-standing 80-byte transmission limit in 2025, making it easier to store non-financial data on the network. Critics said that change encouraged this type of use.
Mempool backlog rises to highest level since February 2025
The increase in micro transactions and non-financial usage has also enlarged the queue of unconfirmed transfers in the mempool. CryptoQuant reported that the mempool count reached about 128,000 transactions, the highest reading since February 2025.
Moreno also noted that while these micro transactions dominate by count, they carry relatively limited economic value on the network. CryptoQuant found that overall network activity remains 7% below the all-time high recorded in September 2024. In the firm’s view, the recent pickup in on-chain activity during a muted price period has been driven mostly by small-value and non-financial uses.