Gate Research Institute: BTC Network Review Q1 2025

Summary

• BTC reached an all-time high on January 20, with the price briefly surpassing 108,228 USDT, and its market capitalization rising to approximately 2.1 trillion USD. It then entered a high-level consolidation phase, and as of March 31, the market capitalization fell back to 1.6 trillion USD, with a quarterly decline of about 12%. Meanwhile, gold performed steadily, rising nearly 20% in the quarter, indicating a growing risk aversion among investors.

• BTC holdings are concentrated, with large holders controlling nearly half of the supply. Addresses holding 100-10k BTC collectively hold over 9 million BTC, which has a significant price influence.

• On-chain BTC transactions are active, with the average transaction amount increasing by 26% compared to Q4, and transaction fees decreasing by 42.5%.
• The BTC Layer 2 locked amount is approximately 2.2 billion USD, a decrease of 13% compared to the end of last year, but the overall scale remains stable. The CORE protocol has the highest share, maintaining its dominant position. Hemi launched in March, with TVL rapidly increasing to 209 million USD, showing strong growth momentum. Overall, the TVL of leading protocols is stable, while smaller projects are more susceptible to market sentiment fluctuations.

• BTC mining difficulty increased in Q1, reaching approximately 114T as of March 31, up 3.8% from 109.78T on December 31, 2024.
• The BTC core development team has significantly improved network performance and block space utilization by optimizing the fee estimation mechanism and script execution efficiency, providing support for the implementation of more complex applications.
• The focus of Q2 will be on enhancing the privacy of the Bitcoin network, improving transaction processing efficiency, and supporting Layer 2 protocols. Related work has already begun, and progress is expected this quarter.
  

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