I detailed a presentation at the CryptoNutz Bitcoin Meetup on April 19th, where I shared my thoughts on the impending Bitcoin halving, set to occur the very next day. As someone who has witnessed each Bitcoin halving, I've seen the typical rise in anticipation and uncertainty that accompanies these events. However, this latest halving felt different in both atmosphere and potential impact.
During the presentation, I offered a historical perspective and argued that miners might not experience significant financial hardship from the reduced block reward. I explained that miners are compensated not only through the block rewards, or "coinbase" rewards, but also through transaction fees. These fees have surged recently, partly due to the increase in Bitcoin transactions fueled by new applications like Ordinals and the introduction of Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs), which have both increased trading activity thus increasing transaction volume and costs.
For the past few months I had started running some Antminer S9 units through ViaBTC with the goal of capturing and sharing Block 840,000 as well as getting some residual heat in the house lol.
Remarkably, at the very moment this block was mined, it was ViaBTC that secured and distributed the reward. This occurrence not only underscored my earlier points about the evolving nature of miner compensation but also brought an unexpected twist—according to an email from ViaBTC, Block 840,000 not only fell into our pool but also turned out to be the most valuable transaction block ever recorded.
IMAGE Screenshot of ViaBTC mining rewards up to hitting block 840,000 and after.
IMAGE Screenshot of email from ViaBTC regarding block 840,000
This firsthand experience and the real-time data from ViaBTC provided compelling evidence to support my thesis that the impact of halvings is changing and that the economic dynamics for miners are evolving beyond simple block rewards. This discussion at the meetup sparked a lively debate and set the stage for further observations as we navigate the post-halving landscape. I will be doing another presentation in four months to go through findings of what was discussed in this past presentation and see just how on the mark some of the past halving reflect on our future of BTC.
Here are a few slides from my presentation.
One of the things I have also been experimenting with are Ordinals and have created a series in the early release within the first 100,000. I have learned a bit about Ordinal Theory and got really lucky being able to capture some of the satoshies from Block 840.000 which will be used to create my next generation of Ordinals for an game idea somewhere in a space in time that doesn't exist outside my mind...