The Bitcoin Mempool Is a Ghost Town: Is Retail Gone?

A simple observation of the state of the Bitcoin mempool and its low utilization sparked a debate on the current state of bitcoin adoption and how the retail and self-custody use case have languished in the face of the digital gold narrative.

Is Bitcoin as a Retail Instrument Gone? Enthusiasts Ponder

The current utilization, or lack thereof, of the Bitcoin blockchain has sparked a debate on the scaling of the currency and its future.

Via social media, bitcoin enthusiast Isaiah remarked on the low utilization of the blockchain in social media, criticizing how bitcoin has become an instrument for only big custodians to leverage.

He stated:

Bitcoin’s at 104k and the mempool looks like this. No one is transacting. Retail is gone. Not even spammers care enough to spam it anymore. Insane.

Furthermore, he stressed that this had to do with the takeover of Bitcoin by institutional sources, like Blackrock and exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

Nonetheless, opinions on the issue differed, as Pierre Rochard, a long-time bitcoin researcher and proponent, took this as a sign that bitcoin scaled to fit several use cases.

“Bitcoin has successfully scaled. Bewilderment intensifies,” he declared, while others blasted his take on the issue, claiming that the level of adoption was not meaningful yet. Nonetheless, he doubled down, remarking it was “astonishing that let’s say 0.01% of people in the planet own/use bitcoin and blocks aren’t full.”

Bitcon Core developer James O’Beirne agreed with Isaiah’s opinion, claiming that this was all part of “using custodians as the de facto L2.” Refuting Rochard’s view, O’Beirne stated:

Bitcoin has not meaningfully scaled. If it stops here, it will go the way of gold: self-custodial use being totally out of reach for all but the richest, locked away in KYC’d warehouses. Impotent.

This is not the first time that O’Beirne refers to the need for adoption for maintaining bitcoin’s ethos principles, like the 21 million issuance limit. In April, he highlighted that the continuous reduction of the mining subsidy and low on-chain fees as a consequence of dwindling adoption might tempt bitcoin stewards to propose and execute this kind of change to keep the network operability.

Read more: Bitcoin Core Developer: Erosion of Security Budget May Undermine Bitcoin’s Monetary Fundamentals