Key Takeaways:
Bitcoin's on-chain activity is surging to levels not seen since the 2024 halving, but the economic value behind those transactions tells a different story.
Bitcoin processed more than 820,000 transactions on June 24, the highest daily count in over two years, driven by a revival of the Runes protocol.
"Transactions carrying Rune protocol messages, known as Runestones, surged above 600,000 per day, also marking a two-year high," according to Glassnode data.
Rune-related activity now accounts for roughly 25% of all Bitcoin network fees, reaching multiyear highs. The surge comes as bitcoin trades near $62,500, roughly 50% below its October all-time high of $126,080.
The divergence between network activity and price is stark — high transaction counts in prior cycles correlated with rising prices and economic demand, but this time the volume reflects protocol usage rather than a surge in financial transfers.
The Runes protocol, a Bitcoin fungible token standard similar to ERC-20 on Ethereum, debuted at the April 2024 halving and initially triggered a spike in fees. Activity faded through 2025 but has returned with force in 2026, pushing block space demand to near-record levels.
CryptoQuant's network activity index has crossed above its 365-day moving average for the first time since December 2024, entering what the research firm classifies as a bull phase. The index jumped from roughly 3,320 to approximately 3,600, sitting just 7% below its all-time high recorded in September 2024.
"This above-trend reading has been sustained for several weeks and marks the first positive activity regime since mid-2024, contrasting sharply with Bitcoin's ongoing bear market price decline," CryptoQuant wrote in a research note.
The Catch: Dust Transactions Dominate
The economic content of the surge warrants scrutiny. Transactions below 0.01 BTC, roughly $630 at current prices, now account for approximately 80% of all daily on-chain activity, up from 44% in 2023, according to CryptoQuant. The firm noted that "the economic content of these transactions differs materially from prior high-activity periods."
The removal of OP_RETURN's byte limit last year opened the door to a surge in data timestamping and protocol-driven usage, generating "high volumes of dust-value transactions," CryptoQuant said. The Bitcoin mempool has expanded to around 128,000 pending transactions, its highest level since late February 2025, with congestion concentrated among low-fee transactions.
Selling Pressure Eases From Long-Term Holders
While protocol activity drives the transaction count higher, a separate on-chain signal points to improving supply dynamics. Bitcoin's long-term holders — investors who have held coins for at least five years — have slashed their selling activity to the lowest levels in nearly two years.
The 90-day moving average of coins spent by these "OG" holders has dropped to just 962 BTC, its lowest since November 2024, according to CryptoQuant. During the peak of the 2023-2025 bull cycle, single-day sell-offs sometimes exceeded 142,000 BTC. At current prices near $62,500, these investors are choosing to hold rather than sell, removing a significant source of supply pressure.
Long-term holders now control more than 4.37 million BTC, up from roughly 2 million in early 2024, with approximately 43% of supply dormant for more than three years, according to VanEck analysis.
The combination of easing OG selling and slowing ETF outflows over the past two weeks suggests bitcoin may be finding a structural floor, even as protocol-driven dust transactions inflate headline network activity figures.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
