Measuring minrelaytxfee across the Bitcoin network

In a recent network crawl conducted on December 17, 2025, significant changes were observed in the acceptance of low fee filters by network nodes compared to measurements taken in September of the same year. Initially, only 2.0 percent of nodes accepted a low feefilter on September 10, which slightly increased to 3.9 percent by September 15. However, by December 17, there was a notable rise to 27.7 percent. This increase was predominantly seen among i2p and onion nodes, with IPv4 and IPv6 networks also showing growth, albeit to a lesser extent.

The data collected presents an interesting distribution of minimum relay fees across all network nodes, highlighting distinct differences among various types of networks such as i2p, IPv4, IPv6, and onion_v3. For instance, on December 17, the majority of i2p nodes (50.9%) had adopted a 100 minrelayfee, marking a significant shift from the previously dominant 1000 minrelayfee setting observed in earlier measurements. Similar trends were evident in the other networks, where there was a general decline in nodes setting their minrelayfee at 1000, complemented by an increase in nodes opting for lower or no feefilter settings.

This shift towards lower fee filters suggests a changing landscape in network node configuration, with a growing inclination towards more inclusive transaction processing criteria. The detailed breakdown by network type sheds light on how different networks are adapting at varying rates, with the most considerable change noted within the i2p and onion_v3 networks. Such data is crucial for understanding the evolving dynamics of network behavior and the potential implications for transaction processing and network health.

Accompanying the textual information were two histograms, visually representing the distribution of minrelayfee across all nodes and by individual network types. These visual aids corroborate the textual data and provide a clear view of the trends and shifts in network configurations over the analyzed period.