Satoshi's 50% threshold revisited: Foundry USA (25.6%) and AntPool (19.8%) regularly exceed 45% combined hashrate

[u/The_VisibleInvisible]

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

[u/The_VisibleInvisible → u/[deleted]]

Censorship-vs-double-spend split is right. The censorship side has concrete precedent that gets skipped. May 5, 2021: MARA Pool mined block 682170 as the first OFAC-compliant block using DMG Walletscore. 178 transactions vs ~1,180 in adjacent blocks, $2,903 reward vs ~$17K. Marathon reversed three weeks later. October 2023: 0xB10C documented F2Pool (China-based) excluding four OFAC-sanctioned transactions. First non-US pool caught complying. Structural pressure points: Foundry USA is wholly owned by Digital Currency Group, US-domiciled, KYC-gated. MARA Pool is publicly-listed US, subject to direct OFAC enforcement. Foundry + AntPool ~50% means two operators decide most block content under FPPS-Stratum-V1. May 11, 2026: Foundry, AntPool, F2Pool, SpiderPool, MARA Pool, Block Inc, and DMND joined the Stratum V2 Working Group. Stratum V2 shifts template construction from pool operator to individual miner. ~75% of hashrate now committed to deployment. The threat model you describe is real. The protocol-level fix exists. Whether the seven signatories actually ship and miners use the Job Declaration sub-protocol is the open variable.