CryptoQuant says daily Bitcoin transactions have topped 800,000, with Ordinals, Runes, BRC-20 and OP_RETURN-based usage driving multi-year highs in throughput and fees rather than larger economic transfers.
Bitcoin network activity has climbed to its strongest level of 2026, with daily transactions exceeding 800,000 and the activity index moving above trend for the first time since December 2024, according to a CryptoQuant research note covered by FXStreet. The surge has pushed transaction counts and fee generation to multi-year highs, but CryptoQuant said it is being driven mainly by very small transfers linked to Ordinals, Runes, BRC-20 tokens and OP_RETURN-based data usage rather than broader economic demand. Transactions below 0.01 BTC and below 0.001 BTC now make up roughly 80% of daily transfers, up from around 44% in 2023, while the mempool has expanded to about 128,000 pending transactions, raising the risk of higher fees for time-sensitive transfers.