The post Can BTCfi Keep Miners Secure? appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com. Daily transaction fees on the Bitcoin network have collapsed by more than 80% since April, according to a report from Galaxy Digital. As of August 2025, nearly 15% of blocks are “free,” meaning they’re being mined with minimal or no transaction fees, just one satoshi per virtual byte or less. Lower Bitcoin (BTC) transaction fees benefit users but reduce miners’ revenue, raising concerns about the sustainability of the network’s long-term security model. Bitcoin’s incentive structure relies on miners being compensated for their work through block rewards and transaction fees. But with the April 2024 halving cutting rewards to 3.125 BTC per block, miners are leaning heavily on the fee market, and it’s drying up. “As block rewards shrink, more weight falls on transaction fees,” Pierre Samaties, chief business officer at the Dfinity Foundation, told Cointelegraph. “If usage does not grow, that base thins, and the guarantees weaken. Sustained throughput is essential for the system to defend itself.” Average Bitcoin transaction fees. Source: Galaxy Digital Related: Bitcoin 2025 builders predict DeFi will unseat traditional finance Bitcoin onchain activity slumps Bitcoin’s onchain activity has slowed significantly since the decline of non-monetary trends like Ordinals and Runes. Galaxy’s report notes that OP_RETURN transactions, used heavily during the 2024 Ordinals boom, now account for just 20% of daily volume, down from over 60% at their peak. Meanwhile, alternative layer 1s like Solana are gaining traction for high-frequency use cases like memecoins and NFTs. Furthermore, the rise of spot Bitcoin ETFs, which now hold over 1.3 million BTC, has pushed more BTC volume offchain, limiting movement that would otherwise generate fees. Bitcoin’s fee market is elastic by design, meaning that fees rise when demand surges and fall when activity slows. However, if demand continues to shrink, miners may be left with too little incentive to…