Bitcoin Whales and Institutions Dominate Amid Declining Network Activity

Key Highlights

• Bitcoin transactions have declined significantly this cycle

• Despite declining transactions, whales and institutions now dominate th market

Bitcoin’s Network Activity Is Declining

While Bitcoin continues to hold strong above the $100K level and eyes its all-time high of $111.9K, the activity on its blockchain tells a surprising story. You’d expect surging prices to go hand in hand with a rise of on-chain transactions, but that’s not quite what’s happening.

BTC Transactions and Price Trends: The graph illustrates a structured uptrend in Bitcoin transaction counts, with fluctuations ranging between 320,000 and 500,000, alongside a corresponding trajectory in Bitcoin prices from January 2023 to May 2025.

In fact, the number of transactions has declined noticeably. But here’s those fewer transactions are moving more money than ever.

According to Glassnode report, Bitcoin network has seen a significant drop in daily transaction volume compared to the highs of 2023 and 2024. Where the blockchain once processed up to 734,000 transactions a day, we now see activity hovering between 320k and 500k transactions daily in 2025.

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However, despite fewer transactions, the settlement volume remains robust. The average value of a single Bitcoin transaction is now $36,200, and the network settles an average of $7.5 billion every day.

At its recent $100K price break, this even peaked at $16 billion in daily volume. These are not activities from retail investor but are the moves of institutions and whales.

Graph depicting Bitcoin's shifting landscape: a surge in non-monetary transactions from February to November 2024 and a notable contraction thereafter, alongside fluctuating BTC prices.

Non-monetary activity spiked in late 2024 but has since faded. What remains consistent, however, is the monetary transfer volume pointing to a strong foundation of actual value movement, even as flashy on-chain trends lose steam.

Bitcoin transfer volume analysis from early 2023 to mid-2025 shows a current transfer volume of $8 billion, with an all-time high (ATH) of $16 billion. The graph highlights fluctuations in BTC price alongside transfer volumes over this period.

Perhaps the most telling sign of the shift toward big money is the growth in high-value transactions those over $100,000. Back in November 2022, they made up 66% of total Bitcoin volume. Fast forward to today, and that number has jumped to 89%. That means almost 9 out of every 10 dollars moved on-chain is coming from large transfers.

What This Means for BTC

Bitcoin’s network may be experiencing little activity count, but it’s louder than ever in terms of economic weight. Fewer, bigger moves tell us that institutional players and high-net-worth individuals are becoming the dominant users of Bitcoin’s base layer.

This shift is a strong signal that Bitcoin is maturing into a true settlement layer for large-scale capital flows.