It is unfair to call it FUD, lol. Leading voices like Nikita Zhavoronkov, the developer of Blockchair, are legitimately concerned and are calling for continued high fees or even protocol changes to maintain security, while Pierre Rochard minimises the problem by claiming that rising Bitcoin prices offset declining rewards.
Listen, dismissing Bitcoin security budget as FUD is lazy, its security budget is real. We are in a cycle of halving subsidies, which means that 51% attacks become more affordable if fee markets do not change & miners hash power drops.
Happened to stumble across this post. Important topic.
For what it's worth, I'm a 2017 account here with little to no activity, but with mining connections going back to ~2010 or so.
With that said, I do wonder how much consideration there is for the Bitcoin network outside of faith-based security. That's to say, I often get the sense there's an odd, large contingency in the community who finds complacency and... faith... to be adequate security measures.
In the face of widespread geopolitical jockeying/unrest, lightspeed technology, and practically endless capital accessible and rotating around/among/without/within some people & organizations - I find the "
faith-based security" and "
black swans are impossible" crowd/s to be disappointing, confused, and largely missing the importance around potential realities/futures for Bitcoin.
It's obvious Bitcoin isn't perfect nor will it ever be. It's not unreasonable to hold the position that Bitcoin may need to harden itself defensively - quantum resistance, security budget, or otherwise.
In the name of value and risk analysis, talking about this
now and addressing it
now -
not kicking it down the road - is the correct course of action.
With all that said, I'll get to the broader point of this reply:
You'll note that these are all Chinese-based mining pools, four of the five largest worldwide, representing anywhere from 52-63% of world hashpower. Presumably, these mining pools see value in DMT-NAT and the Ordinals-based
Tap Protocol.
Presumably, they see value in a second Bitcoin-native miner subsidy -
which will necessarily increase Bitcoin's security budget.
My guess is the other three pools (and whomever else) will be following SpiderPool and integrating and distributing DMT-NAT to their users. This has turned into a sort of arms race from the look of it. Pools run the risk of losing out on hash, users, and profits otherwise. Along with possible degraded security.
The principles behind DMT-NAT originate from a fairly recent insight/innovation/concept titled
"Digital Matter Theory." (
https://digital-matter-theory.gitbook.io)
Essentially it boils down to this:_______________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
1)
Bitcoin is the hardest data layer ever.
2) Identified patterns within that data layer can be used as a substrate to create "digital matter" AKA non-arbitrary value/assets. _______________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
DMT-NAT is one example of
non-arbitrary value addressing the Bitcoin security budget dilemma/discussion/topic. (whitepaper:
https://natgmi.com/natpaper)
The associated minting and transactions are fully embedded in the Bitcoin blockchain. It was initially released circa 11/20/2023 as a fair launch, no premines, VCs, or insider allocations. As of block 885588 it's now directed to miners, whether aware or not, at the coinbase level.
DMT-NAT is
created by Bitcoin and requires no consensus changes, no faith-based security, no forks, and no argument.
Mining pools and other miners/communities outside of China are running the risk of losing out on a race (not to mention leaving money on the table) if they don't wake up soon.
The larger Digital Matter Theory insight, personally, gives the same mind-expanding ~feeling and vision I got when first learning about Bitcoin itself.
"Oh, whoa, wow." Bitcoin’s block rewards will continue to halve. Fees will likely remain stagnant or continue trending downwards with the Store of Value narrative/reality.
Sustainable incentives for miners is a must if we're taking long-term security seriously. Ideally, a solution would be one that doesn't require forks, demurrage/taxation, merge-mining, explicit consensus change, faith-based security, and/or nutty argumentation.
Ideally, a solution would be a 100% Bitcoin-native mechanism that expands the security budget from
within -
not leaving it up to faith (or fees) -
non-arbitrarily.
DMT-NAT satisfies those criteria.
BTC I'll leave it at that and hope this was informative.
Take care - live long and prosper.
_______________________________________________________________________________
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Edit 12/9/2025: another related thread for anyone interested: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5565048.msg66122996#msg66122996
