Bitcoin: Miner Fees Near 2011 Levels, Will They Survive the Next Halving?

Home » Crypto news » Bitcoin (BTC) news » Bitcoin: miner fees close to 2011 levels, will they survive the next halving?

https://cryptoast.fr/bitcoin-frais-mineurs-proches-levelx-2011-survivront-prochain-halving/

Transaction fees collected by Bitcoin miners have returned to levels close to those seen in the network's early days. At the end of October, all miners shared around 2.7 BTC in fees per day, on average over 30 days, or nearly 200,000 euros at the current rate, a far cry from the amounts collected during previous cycles.

This low remuneration, reflecting low on-chain activity, worries some as the halving of 2028 approaches. Indeed, Bitcoin transaction fees bring less and less income to miners, while the quantity of new Bitcoins distributed to each block will soon be divided by 2.

This average reached 737 BTC per day in January 2018, or around 8 million euros on average over the month, then 265 BTC in January 2024, then representing more than 10 million euros.

🔍️ Discover our comparison of the 10 best sites to buy Bitcoin

Since June 2025, this average has remained below 20 daily BTC, a threshold then equivalent to approximately 1.8 million euros.

In euros, miners' income from fees is thus approximately 40 times lower than the peaks of January 2018, 52 times lower than the level of January 2024 and 9 times lower than the threshold of June 2025.

In 2028, the subsidy paid to miners will increase from 3.125 to 1.5625 BTC per block. With fees currently representing around 0.6% of their compensation, the transactions would provide little compensation. If the price of Bitcoin does not rise sufficiently, the highest cost operators may have to turn off their machines.

Some large groups are already redirecting their investments towards artificial intelligence, whose revenue prospects make their sites and electrical connections particularly attractive.

By diverting some investment away from the hashrate race, AI could slow competition for rewards, particularly to the benefit of small miners with cheap energy, potentially reducing the concentration of mining in the United States.

📰 Also read in the news – Kidnapping attempt in Vendée: prison sentence for the victim who shot his attackers

Closing farms does not mean that Bitcoin stops working. Thanks to the adjustment of its mining difficulty, a drop in the hashrate can thus improve the income per machine of the remaining miners after this adjustment.

Machine-translated from French