The current situation of the Bitcoin network present a more than favorable picture for miners. This Saturday, December 16, commission income exceeded the 6.25 bitcoins (BTC) reward given by the network in almost a dozen blocks.

The data can be easily corroborated by looking at any Bitcoin explorer, such as mempool.space. The aforementioned particularity is observed in block 821484 and in the 7 blocks that were subsequently mined. Additionally, block 821497 has the same characteristic.

Bitcoin blockchain rewards 6.25 bitcoins to the miner who manages to find the hash for add a block to the chain. That amount is divided in half at each halving, an event that is repeated approximately every four years.

It may happen that, in times of a lot of congestion and high commissions, users have to pay fees higher for miners to select their transactions and include them in a block. These commissions accumulate and, at particular moments like today, they exceed the immutable reward of the network in each block.

The developer identified as Mononaut detailed that the high occupancy is due to a new issuance of tokens BRC-20 through Ordinals protocol inscriptions. "Once it ends, commissions will cool down again, although not for long," he wrote.

In this context, the Bitcoin Foundry mining pool obtained 8.05 bitcoins only with the block fees 821486. The sum is equivalent to $341,448 at the time of writing this article. If the block reward is added, the profits amount to 14.3 BTC (or $606,520).

Although any pool can mine a block under these conditions, it is indisputable that Foundry and AntPool, which hold half of the hashrate of the Bitcoin network, are the biggest beneficiaries. Of the 9 blocks with commissions greater than 6.25 BTC, both pools mined 7, which confirms their central position in the Bitcoin mining industry. To know about whats happening with BTC checkout my other post:

What's the Controversy About Ordinal Causing Surge in BTC Fees