The hype around runes and ordinal numbers is gradually fading, and Bitcoin's trading volume has fallen to its lowest level in 18 months.

According to Gate News bot, The Block reports that Bitcoin (BTC) trading activity has reached its lowest point in a year and a half, with the 7-day moving average trading volume dropping to 316,000 transactions last week, and then slightly rebounding to around 350,000 transactions currently. This represents a significant decline compared to the network peak during the mid-2024 Bitcoin protocol adoption peak (over 700,000 transactions per day).

The sharp decline reflects the cooling of speculative activities surrounding the Bitcoin native protocols (such as Runes and Ordinals), which previously drove a large volume of transactions through token-like functionalities and NFT-style inscriptions.

(Source: The Block)

These protocols once brought Ethereum-like applications to Bitcoin, but as traders’ interest shifted to other blockchain ecosystems that offer more native support for such activities, they have largely faded from mainstream view. Since the beginning of this year, transaction fees have remained below $1.50, indicating minimal competition for block space and a return to Bitcoin’s traditional use case for currency transfers.

The decline in trading activity has led to unexpected technical issues: some users attempted to trade at prices below the Bitcoin Core default relay minimum price (1 sat/vB per virtual byte). The mining pool MARA has started operating a “Slipstream” pipeline specifically designed to handle these non-standard, ultra-low fee transactions, which are often rejected by Bitcoin nodes. This development has sparked a debate within the Bitcoin development community regarding network standards and censorship resistance, with some arguing that filtering low fee transactions contradicts the fundamental principles of Bitcoin.