The end result of a stunning — and largely ideological — disagreement amongst Bitcoin node operators has resolved in favor of the common consumer.
For the primary time in years, the minimal bitcoin (BTC) transaction charge is simply 1/tenth of 1 satoshi per digital byte (vByte).
Many blocks at the moment are paying half the transaction charges versus their median stage only one month in the past. Furthermore, a big proportion of blocks throughout the previous few days are solely partially full, which means that even these new, infinitesimal charge charges usually are not attracting sufficient transactions to refill each block.
1/1 billionth of a bitcoin
For many of Bitcoin Core’s existence, builders of this node software program package deal defaulted to a minimal of 1 satoshi — equal to 1/100 millionth of a BTC — for transactions to realize entry into its well-liked reminiscence pool (mempool) from which miners choose transactions for blockchain inclusion.
Nonetheless, as companies inserted industrial pursuits into these mempool policy-making discussions, Core builders started advocating for stress-free not solely the one-satoshi ground but in addition the mempool’s storage limitations for knowledge unrelated to the on-chain motion of BTC.
Each initiatives prevailed over conservative opposition.
By early June, Core builders introduced unprecedented knowledge storage easements for arbitrary media, code, and industrial inscriptions.
By mid-July, BTC mining pool operators additionally started slashing their minimal charge price 90% from one to 1/10 of a satoshi.
The pie was alleged to develop
Champions of these initiatives thought that these two easements would have welcomed new customers onto the Bitcoin community. The concept was to develop the pie itself — even when miners’ slice of the pie shrunk.
The purpose was extra customers, extra transactions, extra knowledge, extra charges, and extra every part.
As a substitute, exercise ranges barely budged. The one factor that meaningfully modified — downward — was the transaction charge price.
As extra pool operators and node operators modified their Bitcoin Core software program to simply accept charges 90% decrease than one satoshi into their mempool, the chart of % of miner income from BTC charges has declined to its lowest stage since 2022: 0.6%.
Many professional-spam arguments have been about making miners more cash.
Now, so as to have earned barely extra within the quick time period by routing across the min TX relay filter, they’ve bottomed out the transaction charge market and are making constantly much less from transaction charges as a… pic.twitter.com/xs2BtrTKZF
— Mechanic #FixTheFilters #300kb (@GrassFedBitcoin) August 4, 2025
Bitcoin transaction charges have bottomed out
Luckily, Bitcoin’s hard-coded coinbase reward per block — payable separate from user-donated transaction charges — continues to pay miners the overwhelming majority of their income. Yesterday, actually, it paid 99.4% of miners’ income.
In fact, this coinbase reward halves each 4 years, so completely low transaction charges are finally unsustainable for Bitcoin’s long-term safety.
