You Won’t Believe What Bitcoin Miners Are Doing As DeFi TVL Tanks

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If Rootstock’s Q1 2025 were a rom-com, we’d call it “Mining Up, Prices Down: A Love Story.” Rootstock, Bitcoin’s over-achieving DeFi cousin who just can’t stop trying to impress the family, saw a dramatic boost in network security and a whole swarm of miners showing up — despite fewer people actually doing stuff on the network. 👀

Merged mining? Yeah, it jumped from that awkward 56.4% in Q4 2024 to a glitzy 81% in Q1, according to Messari’s “State of Rootstock” report. What’s the secret sauce? Major mining pools Foundry and SpiderPool crashed the party. Next thing you know, Rootstock’s hash power soared over 740 exahashes per second. That’s not just a number — it’s like Rootstock benching more than the *entire* Bitcoin network back in October 2024. Flex much?

The best part? With all this horsepower, Rootstock finally got to call itself “mature.” (Which sounds better than “entering middle age” — don’t worry, Rootstock, nobody’s counting your gray blocks.) Oh, plus transaction fees fell by a whopping 60%. User experience: now with less emotional baggage! Rootstock’s ready to slide into the Bitcoin layer-2 DMs, looking cute and competitive.

In the words of analyst Andrew Yang, “As BTCFi continues to grow, Rootstock is well-positioned for broader adoption via upgrades and more builder-friendly bribes—uh, education programs.”

Turns Out, People Like Security, Not Commitment (to TVL)

But not everything’s rose-scented transaction receipts. Rootstock’s DeFi “Total Value Locked” (TVL) took a nosedive. In Bitcoin terms, TVL dropped 7.2%, and when measured in the ever-dramatic US dollar, it plunged 20% quarter-over-quarter, landing at $179.9 million — which sounds nice unless you remember it flirted with $244.6 million during January’s Bitcoin party. By March, everyone went home, market-wide cooling ensued, and the FOMO evaporated.

Before you spill your digital latte: Ethereum DeFi also tripped over its shoelaces, with TVL down 27% in Q1, haunted by macro gloom and that $1.4 billion Bybit exploit (ouch). So Rootstock wasn’t the only DeFi platform eating comfort food alone this quarter.

Rootstock’s stablecoin scene? Still a soap opera. USDT played lead with $3.8 million and 27.5% market share, but its screenplay got edited down from a 41.3% starring role last season. By end of Q1, the stablecoin cast looked like a reality show with no clear winner.

Addresses looked even sadder: active ones down 26.5%, and new ones falling a whooping 54.7%. But plot twist: daily transactions climbed 4.3%, averaging 11,524. Someone’s still swiping right on Rootstock. 💃

Meanwhile, In Development Land: Stuff Actually Happens

On the dev front, Rootstock dropped the Lovell 7.0.0 upgrade, which brought more EVM compatibility and smarter smart contracts — think “Botox for Blockchain.” Integrations with LayerZero and Meson Finance happened. A new hackathon lured devs with the promise of fame, fortune, and free snacks (probably). Even the governance platform, RootstockCollective, got a little glow-up.

And, for dramatic foreshadowing, Alexei Zamyatin (co-founder of Build on Bitcoin) suggested whoever launches that mythical “easy” DeFi suite on Bitcoin is about to win over 300 million users. No pressure! 🚀

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2025-05-08 16:59