Headline: On-chain activity lags price gains — Bitcoin daily active addresses and network growth down sharply vs. Feb 2021, Santiment says Bitcoin’s on-chain usage has weakened markedly compared with five years ago, on-chain analytics firm Santiment warned in an X post, with two core network indicators — Daily Active Addresses and Network Growth — sitting far below their February 2021 levels. What the metrics track - Daily Active Addresses (DAA) counts unique BTC addresses that participate in at least one transaction each day — a simple gauge of daily network participation. - Network Growth measures addresses appearing on-chain for the first time, i.e., new entrants joining the network. How the trend unfolded Santiment’s multi-year chart shows both metrics plunged at the start of 2024. DAA partially recovered during Bitcoin’s bull leg in the second half of 2024, while Network Growth remained comparatively muted. In 2025, despite Bitcoin reaching fresh price highs, both indicators slumped again and moved sideways — a pattern Santiment described as a “clear bearish divergence,” where market caps hit new highs even as network utility waned. Current snapshot - Daily Active Addresses: ~650,000 per day — down about 42% from February 2021. - Network Growth: ~291,000 new addresses per day — down roughly 47% from the same five-year mark. What it means for the market Santiment cautions that these drops don’t mean “crypto is dead” or that Bitcoin is necessarily entering a multi-year bear market. However, the firm argues that a sustainable, long-term bullish rebound will likely require an uptick in on-chain activity: rising active addresses and renewed network growth would be a strong confirmation that broader usage is returning. Price context Bitcoin is trading sideways near $66,400 as of this report, leaving a disconnect between price momentum and underlying network activity. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news

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