Use It or Lose It: Why Bitcoin Needs You to Occupy Its Block Space
Bitcoin is often described as a vault, a safe place to store value. But that view is incomplete.
Bitcoin is also infrastructure. It is a global, public network where anyone can send, receive, and record transactions. At the heart of this system is something called block space, which is a limited resource where Bitcoin transactions are written permanently.
Today, that resource is sitting idle.
The signs are clear. In June 2025, the Bitcoin mempool — normally a backlog of unconfirmed transactions — was completely cleared. Just two months earlier, Foundry USA mined the emptiest non-empty block in over two years, containing only seven transactions.
The Digital Gold Narrative Worked. What’s Next?
For more than a decade, Bitcoin has thrived under the “digital gold” narrative. As a scarce, decentralized asset, it was positioned as a hedge against inflation and monetary instability. The story worked:
Institutions began allocating
Retail users treated Bitcoin as a long-term savings vehicle
Developers had time to build foundational protocols and tooling
This narrative brought capital and credibility. However, the emphasis on holding over using Bitcoin has led to a cultural norm of passive onchain behavior. Holding Bitcoin became the default. Usage, in many cases, was sidelined.
This drop in usage is now raising red flags across the Bitcoin ecosystem. Developers and long-time contributors are increasingly voicing concerns about what this decline means for Bitcoin’s long-term viability.
Why Usage Matters: The Fee Market is Bitcoin’s Future
Bitcoin’s long-term security relies on two primary incentives for miners:
The block subsidy, which rewards miners with newly issued BTC.
Transaction fees, which reward miners for including user transactions in blocks.
While the block subsidy has historically been the primary reward, it halves roughly every four years and is scheduled to phase out entirely by 2140. The design assumes that transaction fees will eventually replace subsidies as the main incentive for miners to secure the network.
But this transition is not happening at the pace it needs to.
In early 2025, miners earned just ~4 BTC per day in transaction fees, compared to over 50 BTC in daily subsidies. That imbalance creates a widening security gap—a gap that only active usage can close.
If transaction volume and fee pressure remain low, Bitcoin risks entering a negative feedback loop:
Lower fees → Reduced miner incentives → Declining hashrate → Weaker security → Eroded user trust
This is not a distant or abstract concern. It's already visible in the data. Sustaining Bitcoin’s future will require reactivating demand for block space and reinforcing the network’s economic engine.
Building the Future: Bitcoin as Infrastructure
At Fractal, we believe Bitcoin should be more than a store of value. It should be a foundation for building.
That’s why we’re focused on developing and supporting tools that unlock Bitcoin’s full potential as programmable infrastructure:
**Fractal Vote (powered by OP_CAT):** Enables on-chain coordination and decentralized governance using native Bitcoin logic
**Cadence Mining:** A novel mining structure that builds on Bitcoin’s security model while enhancing scalability and broadening participation
**Developer Grants:** Funding builders who are solving real problems with Bitcoin-native tools
Our mission is to help Bitcoin scale to billions of transactions, while staying true to its core principles of decentralization, security, and openness.
What Comes Next? Participation
We’re not building alone. Teams like UniSat, the Ordinals community, BRC-20 developers, and many more are contributing to a more active Bitcoin ecosystem.
The next chapter of Bitcoin’s evolution doesn’t require a pivot. It requires participants.
If you’re a developer: start building on Bitcoin.
If you’re a user: use the network.
If you believe in Bitcoin’s future: recognize that security comes through use.
Let’s get onchain.
