Bitcoin May 2025 Update

Fundamentals

In May 2025, Bitcoin’s Network REV increased by 28% to $20M, marking the fourth consecutive month of relatively flat fee-based activity. This plateau follows a sharp decline from late 2024, when monthly revenues consistently exceeded $40M. While the stability in May suggests a baseline level of sustained network usage, it also points to limited growth in economically meaningful transaction demand. Most of the transaction volume continued to stem from internal ecosystem flows, such as mining-related payouts and fund rebalancing, rather than increased external user activity or speculative inflows. The consistency in REV underscores the current phase of consolidation for Bitcoin's onchain economy, driven more by structural participation than by surging retail or institutional adoption.

As shown below, Bitcoin network activity remained relatively flat in May 2025. Monthly transaction volume held steady at around 12.1M, roughly unchanged from April’s 12.4M, extending a period of subdued but consistent onchain usage. Meanwhile, average transaction fees remained near annual lows, just under $0.20 per transaction, suggesting limited congestion and low demand pressure on block space. This stable, low-fee environment continues to favor retail users and long-term holders, while offering little relief to miners, who depend on higher fee revenue to offset declining block rewards. Below we show the monthly transaction count and average transaction fee on Bitcoin over the past year.

In May 2025, Bitcoin ordinal transaction counts declined for the third consecutive month, falling below 1.8M, down from a peak of over 4M in February. The fee share attributed to ordinals also continued to ease, marking a clear downtrend from the February high of over 15% to less than 5%. This sustained pullback suggests a reversion to baseline usage levels after a surge in interest earlier this year. Whether this reflects a temporary dip in engagement or a more permanent recalibration in ordinal demand remains uncertain.