When Bitcoin's price oscillates at $105,000, a silent cold current is spreading across the underlying network. On June 9, 2025, the Bitcoin Block chain reaches a historic moment - the seven-day moving average transaction volume plummets to 317,000 transactions, hitting the lowest level since October 2023. This liquidity crisis not only tears apart the fragile veil of miner revenue models but also triggers fierce confrontation between Bitcoin fundamentalists and technical reformists.
I. Cliff-like Decline in On-chain Activity: Ecological Alarm Behind the Data
Block explorer The Block monitors that the seven-day moving average transaction volume of the Bitcoin network dropped to approximately 317,000 on Friday, the lowest since October 2023, when it fell to 269,000. Notably, this transaction volume contraction presents a "three-low" characteristic: active address count drops below 942,000, unconfirmed transaction mempool inventory plummets 99% to 3,000, and the median transaction fee falls below 1 sat/vB (about $0.00001).
The miner economic model is facing a double squeeze. Cryptoquant data shows that the network's daily average fee income sharply reduced from $4.7 million in October 2024 to $593,000, with fee proportion in miner revenue dropping below the 2% life-and-death line. In the Slipstream private channel operated by MARA pool, there are even transactions stranded for 30 days with fees as low as $0.01, exposing the deep crisis of miner computing power surplus.
II. Collision of Technical Concepts: Anti-censorship Principle vs. Network Purification Theory
On June 6, the "Decentralization Declaration" signed by 31 Bitcoin core developers sent shockwaves through the community. This document, viewed as a "blockchain human rights act", directly states: "Nodes filtering low-fee transactions essentially establish new censorship checkpoints." Developer representative Jameson Lopp emphasized on technical forums that Bitcoin's ultimate value lies in its anti-censorship nature, even if it means tolerating certain "non-consensus use cases".
Opposing voices come from the pragmatic camp led by Jan3 founder Samson Mow. They publicly denounced: "Allowing garbage transactions below 1 sat/vB is like permitting bicycles to occupy highways." Technical factions point out that the transaction flood caused by the 2024 Runes protocol once led to a 300-fold fee surge, and now that protocol usage has plummeted 98%, the network urgently needs to establish anti-abuse mechanisms. Behind this debate is actually a dispute over Bitcoin's dual identity as a "value storage" and "payment network".
III. Evolution of Miner Survival Rules: Dark Pool Transactions and Computing Power Game
Facing the "Hunger Games" of an average 346,000 daily transactions, top mining enterprises begin exploring unconventional survival strategies. The exposure of Marathon Digital's Slipstream private channel reveals the tip of the iceberg of miner "dark pool transactions". This transaction mode, bypassing public mempool for direct packaging, allows miners to obtain stable cash flow but also reduces block producers to de facto "on-chain gatekeepers".
Interestingly, the 0.1 sat/vB ultra-low bowling transaction personally directed by Mempool founder Mononaut was packaged by miners after lingering for 30 days. This performance art-like experiment exposes two cruel realities:
1) Current network bandwidth utilization is less than 40%, forcing miners to "eat indiscriminately";
2) Technical upgrades like SegWit, which increased single block transaction capacity by 400%, have instead exacerbated computing power surplus.
IV. Future Projection: Ecosystem Reconstruction Under the Ice Layer
This liquidity crisis may become a watershed in Bitcoin's evolution history. Miner groups might accelerate transformation towards energy arbitrage models, utilizing low-cost electricity during high-water periods to digest excess computing power; developer camps might promote UTXO management protocol upgrades to improve on-chain efficiency through batch transactions; while institutional investors' focus shifts from mere price fluctuations to network health indicators.
In this bloodless computing power war, each participant is redefining Bitcoin's value boundaries. When Vitalik Buterin mentioned in a recent interview that "Bitcoin needs its own ZK-Rollups", this 16-year-old decentralized experiment stands at the crossroads of technological revolution and conceptual adherence. Perhaps, as Satoshi Nakamoto said in the white paper: "System robustness lies not in perfection, but in tolerance of imperfection."
