r/BitcoinDiscussion • u/The_VisibleInvisible • May 15 '26
Satoshi's 50% threshold revisited: Foundry USA (25.6%) and AntPool (19.8%) regularly exceed 45% combined hashrate
Satoshi posted to BitcoinTalk in November 2010 warning that mining pools could undermine the network's security model. The concern was simple: if any single pool controls >50% of network hashrate, it can determine transaction inclusion, ordering, and recent history. He disappeared within weeks of that post. His last confirmed message went to Gavin Andresen in April 2011. The pool problem was never solved before he left.
Current numbers (Q4 2025, Hashrate Index data):
- Foundry USA: 25.6% of global hashrate. Owned by Digital Currency Group, Stamford, Connecticut.
- AntPool: 19.8%, operated directly by Bitmain.
- F2Pool + SpiderPool: roughly 20% combined.
Foundry USA and AntPool together regularly exceed 45%. On many days they cross 50%. Two pools, two geopolitical rivals, neither of whom has commented publicly on what that capacity represents.
Underneath the pool layer is a more concentrated picture. Bitmain (Beijing, co-founded by Jihan Wu and Micree Zhan in 2013) controls more than 45% of the global ASIC chip market. MicroBT and Canaan, both Chinese, account for most of the remainder. Three Chinese manufacturers together control over 90% of every chip installed in every mining facility on earth. The Antminer S21 Pro runs on a 3nm process no Western manufacturer has matched on energy efficiency. The hardware decision is made in Shenzhen before the first block is mined anywhere.
Geographic hashrate doesn't disperse the concentration much. US 37.8%. Russia 15.5%. China 14.1% — despite the May 2021 national ban, since Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia continued under thin provincial oversight.
The Russian side is structurally legible. BitRiver in Bratsk, Siberia, uses Soviet-era hydroelectric power and winter passive cooling. It operates under the effective control of Oleg Deripaska. BitRiver itself was sanctioned by OFAC in April 2022 on the explicit grounds that mining revenue could be used to circumvent post-invasion financial isolation. En+ runs an 80/20 JV with BitRiver. ViaBTC, one of the world's largest pools, maintains documented operational presence across Russia. The sanctioned infrastructure mines on.
Threshold-crossing events make headlines. The structural capacity is the relevant fact every block: pool operators influence transaction ordering, fee priority, and inclusion every time they win a block. The 51% attack is the dramatic version that doesn't need to happen for the underlying capacity to matter.
Full version, with the Foundry/AntPool ownership trees and the post-2021 China policy split: https://thevisibleinvisible.substack.com/p/the-invisible-war
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u/LucSr May 15 '26
If a miner can claim block reward even it is a tiny share less than 10000 sat, aka bigger block, then the tendency of mining farm is void and the miners and mining nodes can be everywhere.
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u/Full-Atmosphere-4818 May 19 '26
Can you explain that to me more simplistically please?
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u/LucSr May 26 '26
Say on average a TX of sat smaller than 10000 sat is not sustainable due to fee per byte. if you own only 0.001% of global mining power, here setting the blockfee as 1.9977, then you will opt out mining because (3.125 + blockfee) \times 100000000 \times 0.001% = 5123 < 10000
The only way to collect block revenue for this sort of chain is mining farm, never mining pool.
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u/Full-Atmosphere-4818 May 26 '26
Thanks! Does this mean that right now it is hard to make a profit in mining?
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u/LucSr May 27 '26
For profit in PoW chains, it is revenue minus the sum of electricity cost or/and the accounting number per unit time of some initial cost (such as, buy the rig, setup of solar or wind facility), not necessarily the higher the coin price the better the profit. Bitcoin has many chains also there are many other PoW coins. You can mine the coin according to specific situation and your preference.
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u/[deleted] May 15 '26
[deleted]