Bitcoin Network Transaction Count Hits New Low Since October 2023

BlockBeats News, June 9th, according to The Block, the Bitcoin network's seven-day average transaction count had dropped to 317,000 last Friday, hitting a new low since October 2023. Due to the low transaction activity, some miners have started looking for transactions with fees below the Bitcoin Core's default relay fee threshold (1 sat/vB). Mononaut pointed out that one of their transactions was submitted to the Bitcoin mining company MARA (formerly Marathon Digital), which publicly operates a non-standard low-fee transaction channel named Slipstream.

On June 6th, 31 Bitcoin Core developers co-signed an open letter, opposing node filtering of low-fee or non-standard transactions, emphasizing Bitcoin's fundamental property as an anti-censorship system. The developers noted that mandating users to use private channels like Slipstream would undermine the decentralization feature. This stance was opposed by individuals like Jan3 founder Samson Mow, who believe that Core developers are removing anti-spam protection mechanisms.