Written by Jaran Mellerud

Transaction fees have been unusually low, frustrating miners earning as little as 0.01 BTC per block. With the block subsidy now at 3.125 BTC, fee volatility is more noticeable. However, miners shouldn’t panic—low-fee periods are temporary and will be followed by higher fees. This article explains why.

Miners are frustrated by extremely low fees, with the average fee per block in 2025 at just 0.04 BTC—only 1.3% of the total block reward.

A screenshot from Mempool.space shows Bitcoin users getting into blocks with fees as low as 1 sat/vB, the absolute minimum.

Some miners fear prolonged low profitability due to these fees. However, as I will explain, there’s no reason to worry.

Let’s take a step back and examine the historical trend of transaction fees. As shown in the chart below, fees are currently at rock-bottom levels, the lowest since the 2022 bear market.

Don’t assume these low fees are the norm. As the chart shows, Bitcoin has historically cycled between low-fee periods and sustained higher fees, with occasional extreme spikes.

Since 2020, the average fee per block has been 0.35 BTC, making up 11.2% of the block subsidy—much higher than most miners realize. However, the median daily average fee per block is just 0.16 BTC, highlighting how a few massive fee spikes skew the average.

For example, during the last halving, one block had over 37 BTC in fees, only for fees to drop back to minimal levels days later.

Bitcoin’s transaction fees are highly volatile. They rise and fall unpredictably, so a short low-fee period doesn’t mean fees will stay low.

Based on this analysis, we recommend the following steps to optimize your mining strategy:

Keep Your Hashrate Online: Fee spikes are unpredictable, so maintaining uptime ensures you capture them when they happen.

Choose the Right Mining Pool: Some pools don’t give their users the benefits of fee spikes. We recommend using NiceHash, as its marketplace model ensures you receive full market value for your hashrate.

Be Patient: Fees fluctuate, but history shows they will rise again. Read our detailed analysis for a long-term fee outlook.

Use Historical Averages for Profitability Projections: Current fees are volatile, so base profitability projections on historical data. I use 0.35 BTC as a benchmark in my models, as it aligns with the average fee per block since 2020.

Don’t worry about the current low fees—zoom out and trust that they will rise again.

Keep your hashrate online to capture periodic fee spikes, which may become larger and more frequent over time. Our Finland project offers exceptionally high uptime, ensuring you’re always online to take advantage of Bitcoin’s volatile fees.

Interested in Bitcoin mining solutions in Finland? Contact us here to learn more.