The Bitcoin network seems like a ghost town, with its activities falling to the lowest level in a year. A Bitcoin Network Activity Index from the market analytics platform CryptoQuant hovers around 3,760, the lowest since February 2024, indicating that activity on the leading blockchain has plunged 15% since its November 2024 record high.
According to a weekly CryptoQuant report , the index measures the growth in key Bitcoin metrics like block size, active addresses, and number of transactions. This means the decline in Bitcoin activity encompasses almost all areas of the network. Notably, the index has fallen below its 365-day moving average for the first time since July 2021, when China banned Bitcoin mining.
Bitcoin Network Activity Declines
Examining different parts of the Bitcoin network reveals a steep decline in their activities. The number of active addresses and transactions has fallen by double digits. The total daily number of transactions has tumbled 53% from an all-time high of 734,000 in September 2024 to 346,000 currently, the lowest level since March 2024.
Likewise, the number of active addresses on Bitcoin has fallen 20% from 1.14 million in November 2023 to 942,000 today, the lowest level since October 2024.
Bitcoin miners are also feeling the heat because total transaction fees have declined due to low network activity. Total daily transaction fees are $593,000, compared to late October 2024, when $4.7 million was the local top for fees. Transaction fees now represent 1.8% of total revenue for Bitcoin miners, indicating lower profitability for this cohort of market participants.
BTC Appears Overvalued
Furthermore, the low network activity is also evident in the almost empty Bitcoin mempool. The number of transactions waiting to be included in a block has fallen 99% from 287,000 in December 2024 to 3,000 currently. CryptoQuant says the mempool has not been this empty since March 2022, during the last bear market.
Besides the nearly empty mempool, the Bitcoin network has witnessed a collapse in the use of the Runes protocol. Runes was created for minting tokens on the Bitcoin network, and when the protocol was launched in April 2024, the daily number of OP RETURN codes spiked to 802,000. However, that figure has fallen to 10,000 today, indicating that much fewer OP RETURN codes are used in Bitcoin transactions.
Meanwhile, from a network activity perspective, bitcoin (BTC) appears overvalued at its current price of $97,000. The red and blue Metcalfe valuation bands show that the asset’s fair value is between $48,000 and $95,000.
