The daily transaction costs on the Bitcoin network have collapsed by more than 80% since April, according to a Galaxy Digital report. In August 2025, almost 15% of the blocks were “free”, which means that they are extracted with minimum transaction costs or not, a single Satoshi per virtual byte or less.
It’s great for users because they can take advantage of inexpensive bitcoin (BTC) transactions. However, this becomes a serious problem for minors and, by extension, for the long -term security model of the network.
The incentive structure of Bitcoin is based on the fact that minors are offset for their work through the awards of blocks and transaction costs. But with the cutting awards in April 2024 reduction by half to 3.125 BTC per block, minors strongly lean on the costs market, and it dries.
“While block rewards are shrinking, more weight is transaction costs,” said Cointelegraph Pierre Samaties, Director of Dfinity Foundation. “If the use does not develop, this base rises and the guarantees are weakening. The sustained flow is essential for the system to defend itself. ”
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Bitcoin onchain Activity Bulls
Onchain de Bitcoin’s activity has slowed considerably since the drop in non -monetary trends such as ordinals and runes. Galaxy’s report notes that OP_return transactions, used strongly during the 2024 ordinal boom, now represent only 20% of the daily volume, against more than 60% at their peak.
Meanwhile, the alternative layer 1 like Solana is gaining ground for high frequency use cases such as the same and NFT. In addition, the rise of the FNB Bitcoin Spot, which now contain more than 1.3 million BTC, has pushed more BTC volume outside Chain, limiting the movement that would otherwise generate costs.
The Bitcoin costs market is elastic by design, which means that costs increase when demand increases and drop when activity slows down. However, if the demand continues to shrink, minors can find themselves with too little incentive to secure the network. Galaxy noted that almost 50% of recent blocks have not been full and that Mempool’s activity remains slow.
In this context, a new hope emerges in the form of BTCFI, Bitcoin-Native Defi. Unlike Defi on Ethereum (ETH) or Solana (soil), which uses smart contracts on these channels, BTCFI uses Bitcoin as a basic active ingredient while creating financial applications such as loans, trading and generation of elements on layers or protocols that interact directly with the Bitcoin network.
“Each BTCFI action requires a moving bitcoin,” said Samatias. “The movement leads to the calculation, the calculation consumes block space and the space carries the cost.” In other words, if BTCFI develops, the same goes for activity and costs of costs.
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From digital gold to financial primitive
Samatias noted that Bitcoin has long been considered “digital gold”, a reserve of value more than a usable asset. However, he sees him evolve in something more fundamental: a primitive financial.
“A financial primitive is a building block, developers can use to design flows, tools and logic,” he said. “In this role, Bitcoin becomes more than an asset to be held, it becomes a programmable component in broader financial systems.”
Julian Mezger, director of liquidium marketing, also said that infrastructure improvements were preparing the way for modification. “The last five years have transformed the Bitcoin infrastructure of a simple layer of settlement into a multilayer ecosystem,” he said. “We now see the foundations for the real native Bitcoin deffi.”
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