Marathon CEO Fred Thiel predicts Bitcoin transaction fees will exceed block subsidy

Fred Thiel, CEO of listed mining company Marathon Digital Holdings, shared his insights on several key aspects of the Bitcoin landscape, with a focus on transaction fees, hash rate elasticity, and global expansion plans. Thiel emphasized the conditions for Bitcoin transaction fees, pointing out that large payloads that need to be prioritized for processing will increase fees. He emphasized that the volume of transactions in the memory pool is the main driving factor, with various value-added services built on top of the basic transaction fee. Thiel compared it to a layered system, where first-rate services ensure the finality of transactions, while lower-level services operate on a less specific basis. Thiel predicted that over time, transaction fees will exceed block subsidies, especially as block subsidies continue to decrease. Regarding the elasticity of Bitcoin's hash rate, Thiel pointed out that although it is expected to drop significantly after halving, the actual decrease is not so severe. He attributed this elasticity to the growth announcements of public and sovereign miners. Thiel expects that as new sovereign nations and other private entities enter the mining field, public miners will merge and account for a smaller proportion of the global hash rate, diluting the overall share held by public miners.